FIFTH COLUMN
FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE LADY WILFORD'S ADVENTURES ESCAPE FROM SOUTH FRANCE (By Telegraph.—special to Times) AUCKLAND, Friday First-hand experience of fifth columnists fell to the lot of Lady Wilford, widow of Sir Thomas Wilford, a former High Commissioner for New Zealand in London, when in a collier taking 700 people from Southern France a few days before the German invasion. Lady Wilford arrived at Auckland and left last night for Wellington. Developing engine trouble on the way to Gibraltar, the collier put into Port Vendres and thus lost the convoy. After leaving Port Vendres the collier was attacked by a submarine which had received torch signals from six Fifth Columnists on board and it was only through the captain’s skill that the ship evaded a torpedo, and shells. When the collier's gun was manned the submarine dived and was seen no more.
Desperate, the six enemy agents then attempted to seize the ship, but were overpowered and placed in irons. Lady Wilford was in the aft hold during the trouble. On reaching Gibraltar the passengers were transferred to a troopship, which, with 1400 civilians and 450 troops, arrived safely in England.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT19400920.2.75
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21223, 20 September 1940, Page 7
Word count
Tapeke kupu
191FIFTH COLUMN Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21223, 20 September 1940, Page 7
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Waikato Times. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in