MUCH TO EXPLAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 January 1941, Page 7

MUCH TO EXPLAIN

NAZI RAIDER’S DISGUISE

MR HUGHES GIVES FACTS

JAPANESE NAME PAINTED CONSPICUOUSLY.

( By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CANBERRA. December 31.

The Minister of the Navy. Mr Hughes, stated that the flying of the Japanese flag on the raider that shelled Nauru Island could not be anything but compromising and unprecedented at a time when Japan is attempting to strengthen her iclations with Australia.

The reports received by the Naval Board from Nauru imide it impossible to doubt that the raider was sailing under the Japanese flag right up to the time of her attack.

“Our information places it quite beyond doubt not only that the Japanese flag was flown but also that the ship had the name of the well-known Japanese vessel conspicuously painted on her and was dressed in all ways to resemble the Japanese ship." he said. It was not till the raider manoeuvred to bring her guns to bear on the island that the Japanese flag was replaced by rhe Nazi flag and simultaneously Nazi flags were dropped and displayed over the sides of the ship and from the mast, but while the ship was shelling the island the Japanese ship’s name was not obscured.

"1 imagine that in this ease the Germans will have » great deal to explain io Japan.” Mr Hughes added.