SUNK BY GERMANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1941, Page 5

SUNK BY GERMANS

SHIP UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL TAKING SUPPLIES TO ICELAND ONLY THREE SURVIVORS. PICKED UP. OUT OF CREW OF TWENTYSEVEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 9. The American State Department announces that the ship Stessa, of 1700 tons, has been torpedoed ami sunk in the Atlantic. Twenty-Four of the 27 members of the crew are presumed to have been lost. The sinking took place on August 17, 300 miles southwest of Iceland. The three survivors were not picked up until last Saturday. There were five British subjects and one American on board. The remainder of the crew were Danish, Norwegian. Swedish and Portuguese. The Stessa was one of the Danish ships recently taken over by the United States Maritime Commission. Although flying the flag of Panama, she was owned and operated by a New York company. She was carrying supplies for the Iceland Government and her cargo did not. include arms; ammunition or implements of war. Mr Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, said there was no question as to who had attacked the ship.

ANOTHER VICTIM U.S. FREIGHTER BOMBED IN RED SEA. ALL MEMBERS OF CREW SAFE. WASHINGTON, September 8. The State Department announced that the American freighter Steel Seafarer was sunk in the Red Sea on September 7 by an aerial bomb from an unidentified plane. Ail hands are safe. There are no further details. Large quantities of war materials have been shipped to the British armies through the Red Sea recently in American freighters, President Roosevelt having allowed them to use these waters since the British drove the Italians from _ their African colonies bordering the Red Sea. It is predicted that when President Roosevelt makes his postponed broadcast on Thursday he will warn Germany and Italy that America insists on the freedom of the seas. He is expected to ask Congress, or at least prepare the people, for an amendment to the Neutrality Act and a stiffer maritime policy. The Steel Seafarer, another message reports, was fully lighted and there could have been no mistake about her Identity. A German communique states that enemy shipping in the Gulf of Suez Was successfully attacked on Sunday night. A Nazi commentator says that any ships venturing into this region are likely to get hit. NAZI ABUSE SHOWERED ON PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT. LONDON, September 8. ' The Nazi papers today opened up a battery of abuse upon President Roosevelt. Referring to the American statement on the Greer incident, the German radio denounced the President as “a Bolshevik who receives his orders direct from Jewish criminals,” and called him “the world’s worst liar.” A Berlin paper referred to the President as “an insolent liar, and the mobiliser of criminals against Hitler.” * Another paper declared that the United States has given Germany thousand-fold provocation, but that Germany refused to be provoked.