BLOCKING THE DANUBE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1940, Page 5

BLOCKING THE DANUBE

“COLOSSAL SABOTAGE PLOT” ALLEGED BY GERMANY PARTY OF ALLIED SPECIALISTS. REPORTED ARREST IN RUMANIA. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) BERLIN. April 8. The Official News Agency has disclosed that an alleged “colossal British sabotage plot’ to block the Danube by exploding hundreds of tons of dynamite in the Iron Gate Pass, damaging the banks and sinking barges in the channel, was discovered on April 5. It is alleged that, accompanied by fast British motor-boats, six tugboats, 94 barges and two other ships were passing up the Danube when the indiscretion of one member of a crew revealed that the convoy carried a hundred English specialists, members of the British Army, Navy, and Air Force. The leader was the chief of the British Secret Service in Rumania, who was disguised as a vice-consul, and all personnel were arrested at Giurgiu by the Rumanian police, who found four hundred crates of high-powered explosives, many revolvers, grenades, mines and depth charges in the ship’s cargoes, described as goods in transit. “This,” it is stated, "was an act of war against Germany prepared on neutral soil. Germany is constantly making contact with Rumania regarding the plot.” A Budapest report says the barges were laden from British freighters in the Black Sea. The police boarded the tugs and identified the “British Admiral Pais.” The Associated Press of America Bucharest correspondent says British officials explain that the dynamite was for blowing up British and French river barges, tankers and tugs in the event of a German invasion of the Balkans. A London message states that no trace of “Admiral Pais” can be found in the references.