OFF FINISTERRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1940, Page 6

OFF FINISTERRE

SUBMARINE STOPS NAZI PRIZE BRITONS AND NORWEGIANS RELEASED. SHIP SCUTTLED BY GERMANS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.25 a.m.) RUGBY. September 6. An Admrialty communique states:—“A British submarine rescued the captain and crew of a British merchant ship who were being taken under guard to Germany for internment. His Majesty's submarine Truant was on patrol off Cape Finisterre, where a strange ship was sighted. The submarine came to the surface and closed to investigate, ordering the ship to heave to. The ship proved to be the 5781 tons Norwegian Tropic Sea, which had been captured by an enemy raider some time previously. After she had been kept in company with the raider for some days, she was being sailed to Germany with a German prize crew in charge. She had on board the captain and crew of the British ship Haxby, of 5207 tons, which had been sunk by’ the enemy raider, and her own Norwegian crew and had a cargo of wheat. When the Truant ordered the Tropic Sea to heave to, the ship was scuttled by the German prize crew by means of explosive charges which had been kept ready in position. The German prize crew and the British and Norwegian prisoners took to the boats. The Truant took on board 24 British seamen and the Norwegian captain of the Tropic Sea and his wife. Being unable to accommodate any more survivors, the submarine left the remainder of the Norwegian crew and the German prize crew in boats. These were not then overcrowded and the sea was flat calm. The Truant, moreover, reported that these men were being left in the boats and one boatload of Norwegians has been brought to England. Having legat’d to the weather conditions, probably the other boats reached land.