AERIAL ATTACK ON BRITISH STEAMER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 200, 24 August 1937, Page 7

AERIAL ATTACK ON BRITISH STEAMER.

IN MEDITERRANEAN. 'Planes Machine-Gun and Bomb Vessel. MAEKINGS IDENTIFIED. United Frees Association.—Copyright (Received 12 noon.) MARSEILLES, August 23. The British steamer, Noeniijulia (2499 tons), bound for Barcelona from Susa, Tunis, wirelessed that she was bombed off Ajaccio by two aeroplanes with markings of black circles and white crosses with two black strokes. The captain of the Xoemijulia later declared that a 'plane with a death's head on the fuselage circled for 10 minutes over his ship, almost touching the vessel. Another with the same insignia trained machine-guns on the ship for 17 minutes. Later a bomber dropped two bombs into the sea 30 feet astern. "I protest emphatically. My cargo was harmless and I was flying the British flag while two non-intervention officers were aboard," he declared. A Geneva message says the Spanish Government has telegraphed protesting against "attacks on Spanish and foreign merchantmen, including iJritish, by Italian warships in the Mediterranean," of which, it is alleged, Spain possesses proof. The. Note adds: "Tension in the Mediterranean is aggravated by open assistance afforded the rebels by Italian naval vessels on the whole of the Mediterranean, from Marseilles and Barcelona to the Dardanelles, which must be considered a zone in which a general conflagration may be produced at any moment."