GRAF SPEE MEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1940, Page 5

GRAF SPEE MEN

IMPRISONMENT ORDERED IN ARGENTINA BREACHES OF HOSPITALITY. NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS MADE TO ESCAPE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK. April 6. The Buenos Aires correspondent of the "New York Times” reports that all officers and half of the crew of the German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee will soon be ordered to be confined in a naval prison on Martin Garcia Island, in the River Plate. They will then be treated as prisoners instead of as interned seamen. This drastic action is the result of Government irritation over breaches of Argentine hospitality by men from the Graf Spee. Specific instances are the disclosure of the escape of three officers, including the third in command, and two sailors, and the persistent refusal of the officers to pledge their honour not to escape. The prisoners include Commander Kay. the second in command. One escapee is reported to have reached Germany with documents from the scuttled Graf Spee. It is revealed that there were numerous attempts to escape by members of the crew interned in the interior. According to the Buenos Aires’ correspondent of the American Associated Press, the Government, in a statement explaining its action in further confining members of the Admiral Graf Spee’s company, said. “Argentina has been excessively generous to these officers We cannot allow our neutrality to be jeopardised, and are therefore insuring that they will be unable to return and resume belligerent action.’’