NAZI SEA RAIDERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1943, Page 3

NAZI SEA RAIDERS

MAY BE USING ARCTIC ROUTE BRITISH NAVAL MEASURES. WIDE-RANGING PATROLS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 10. It is stated in London that there may' be some truth in the statement which has been made by the German Admiral Luelzow that German warships have been passing out to raiding operations via the Arctic. The German ships did not find it easy to break out into the Atlantic from their home bases, and since the Bismarck fiasco had not sent heavy warships out raiding but employed only specially-fitted and fairly powerful armed merchantmen. These did not like risking encounters with warships, and they worked off the beaten track, constituting a nuisance but not a serious challenge to the British sea j communications. The Royal Navy, in spite of its many other tasks, has found time to keep an eye on many out of the way places. In the early days of the war the navy visited the Antarctic dependencies of the Falkland Islands and also destroyed oil installations in the South Shetlands which were used- in peace time by whalers. This action was taken to prevent the enemy from using the oil.

British warships recently completed one of these periodical visits to the South Shetlands and other territories.

Admiral Luetzow, speaking on the Berlin radio on February 3, said that German auxiliary cruisers which were operating in the Pacific travelled via the northern Arctic Ocean along the narrow straits between Siberia and the ice zone. One of the -auxiliary cruisers’ most important uses was for intercepting enemy radio messages revealing the position of enemy shipping. ‘ - We intercepted two whaler flotilas in the middle of January as a result of picking up their radio messages,” he added. ‘'Auxiliary cruisers captured three large ships and 10 smaller whalers.” •f ==============