SIBERIAN ISLANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1940, Page 5

SIBERIAN ISLANDS

POSSIBLE SUBMARINE BASE

MIGHT BE TURNED OVER TO GERMANY.

IN EVENT OF WAR BETWEEN ALLIES AND SOVIET.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright NEW YORK, March 19. The Shanghai correspondent of the “New York Times” reports that British, French Japanese and United States naval officers are focusing their a.ileniion on the Commodore Islands, as it. is known that the Soviet Union is fortifying Bering and Modny, the main islands of Ihe Kamandorsky group, -with a strong submarine base at Bering Island, which it is feared the Hussians may grant Germany the use of for raids in the Pacific in the event of the Allies becoming embroiled with the Soviet.

A large group of German naval officers flew to the Kamandorsky group in December and remained there till late in January. In addition 20 German submarine commanders visited there in January and November. Moreover, German Diesel engine experts from the Reich, the ' United States. Mexico, China and the Philippines gathered in Vladivostok and were flown to the islands in parties of 12. The 21 Germans who were seized by a British warship from the Japanese liner Asama Mani in January had tickets to Germany, but the British authorities here believe it was a blind as most of them were going to Kamandorsky. The Russian submarines in the Pacific were fabricated in European Russia and sent to Vladivostok, where they were assembled. If granted the use of the base, the Germans would be able to do likewise.