REPORT DENIED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1941, Page 5

REPORT DENIED

AMERICAN NAVAL CLASH WITH NAZIS SECRET MEETING OF SENATE COMMITTEE. COLONEL KNOX & ADMIRAL GIVE EVIDENCE. LONDON, July 11. Colonel Knox, Secretary of the Navy, and Admiral Stark. Chief of Naval Operations, gave evidence before the United States Senate Naval Committee regarding reports that ships of the American Navy had taken part in a combat against German ships. The proceedings were taken in secret. Members stated afterwards that Colonel Knox and Admiral Stark had denied that United States vessels had been in action against Gorman warships.

PRESIDENT’S ORDERS

DUTIES OF THE ATLANTIC PATROL. WASHINGTON, July 10. President Roosevelt’s Message ordering the Navy to take “all necessarysteps” to ensure the safety of communications between Iceland and the United States was referred to by Colonel Knox at his Press conference. He was asked: “If the Navy has to shoot to de what the President has said, will it shoot?” Colonel Knox replied that President Roosevelt had told the Navy what to do if it became necessary to shoot in order to protect the Atlantic approaches to the United States bases. He declared that the language indicated that the President intended the Atlantic patrol to go further than its previous orders, which were merely to report any hostile craft sighted. A debate on the occupation of Iceland has opened in the Senate. Senator R. Taft, an isolationist, said that President Roosevelt had no right to act without the authority of Congress.