ADMIRALTY DENIAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1941, Page 6

ADMIRALTY DENIAL

OF VICHY ALLEGATION

SINKING OF FRENCH SHIP.

FALSELY ASCRIBED TO BRITISH SUBMARINE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 16. An Admiralty communique reports that the French Admiralty has issued a communique stating that on December 9 the steamship St. Denis, carrying foodstuffs for France and flying the French flag, was torpedoed in the vicinity of the Balearic Islands. The French communique says that a submarine surfaced, challenged the St. Denis, asked for her papers, and then Torpedoed her while she was stopped and preparing to comply with the order. The French Admiralty finally makes the wholly unwarranted assumption that the submarine was British,* and' concludes by threatening to take measures to put an end to such outrages.

The British Admiralty can state as a fact that on the date mentioned no British submarine was either operating in of passing through the area reported as the scene of the incident. Moreover, some eight weeks ago, German U-boats began to enter the Mediterranean, and since then our patrols have frequently sighted and attacked U-boats in the Straits of Gibraltar and the western end of the Mediterranean.