DOUBTFUL CLUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 114, 17 May 1938, Page 7

DOUBTFUL CLUE.

ATLANTIC MYSTERY. Hatches With Name of Missing Freighter. DESTROYED BY EXPLOSION? United Press Association. —Copyright . (Received 2 p.m.) LONDON, May 16. A possible clue is reported to the fate of the British tramp steamer Anglo Australian, a vessel of 5456 tons, built at Sunderland in 1927 for the Nitrate Producers' Steamship Company, which left Cardiff on March S for Vancouver, was reported to have passed the Azores on March 14, and of which no news has since been received. Captain Dalhanna radioed from Cristobal that he had passed two hatch covers, on which the words '"Anglo Australian"' were burnt, 23 miles northeast of Cristobal. Sir John Latta, chairman of the firm of Lawther, Latta and Company, shipowners, declared that the message was puzzling, as it is not the custom of the company to burn the names of vessels on hatch covers. Apparently the ship was destroyed by an explosion. FATE A MYSTERY. British Freight Steamer Disappears. MINE OR WATER SPOUT? LONDON, May 12. There is still nothing to account for the disappearance of the British tramp steamer, Anglo Australian (5456 tons). Nothing has been heard of her since she passed the Azores, after leaving Cardiff on March 8 for Vancouver, to load lumber for Australia. Thirty-eight men were aboard. It is feared that all have perished. Lloyd's underwriters and the owners, the Nitrate Producers' Steamship Company, have done everything possible to trace the ship, but without success. "We are of opinion that she must have struck a water spout or a floating mine, possibly from the Spanish coast," a representative of the owners said to the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" correspondent. "She was a magnificent ship, in perfect trim," he added. "It is impossible that she was lost as a result of any ordinary cause. It must have been terribly sudden. | "Her master, Captain Parslow, was a magnificent seaman. He was a son of ! the Captain Parslow who saved the I Anglo California!!, with its cargo of horses, early in the war. The last shell from a (jerroan submarine killed him, just before the gcllant fight put up by the Anglo Californian's crew forced the U-boat to submerge."