CREW OF COLUMBUS DISTRESSED SEAMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 301, 21 December 1939, Page 8

CREW OF COLUMBUS DISTRESSED SEAMEN.

AMERICAN RULING.

Can Stay In U.S.A. For Period Of Two Months.

OTHER GERMAN SHIP HELD

Inited I'rcss Association.—Copyright. (Rwrlveil 1 p.m.) NKW YORK, December 20. The United StaLes cruiser Tuscaloosa has arrived with f>7f) survivors of the scut I led German I i nor Columbus (:i2,.j(i."> tons), who were taken to Kllis Island. Immigration authorities ruled tliiit they are distressed seamen, entitled to enter the L'nited States leg'illy without visas, but they must re ship to a foreign country within CO da vs.

The (•'crmau motor slii[) Arauea, which 11 n< li<»re<l nt l'ort K verirliules al'tcr being chased by a. British cruiser, has been attached by the Imperial Suyar Company of Galveston, Texas, in a .'JH,fI<M)-dollar Court action, which will prevent her sailing until a bond is po-.ted, even if tile, skipper is willing to lisle running the gauntlet of a waiting British destroyer. Treasury officials said a partial investigation disclosed no reason for a warrant for detention. Germans Ignorant of Scuttling. II is reported from Berlin that neither the I'rcss nor the radip announced the ncuttling 'of the Columbus. The Columbus is the eighteenth Nazi merchant ship scuttled since the outbreak of the war, says a Hritish official wireless message. When hostilities she took refuge in Vera Cruz, Mexico, yhe is said to have been laden with 30,(MX) barrels of oil and food for Germany. In neutral, as well as in the British Press, the practice of scuttling ships is inevitably interpreted as indicating the German Government's despair of winning tho war. The "Daily Herald." in a leading articlc headed "Herr fcicutler," asks why the Columbus sent herself to the bottom. "There was no need for it," aavs the paper. "She was in no danger of capture. She need never have left Vera Cruz, while she could have run into any United States harbour and stayed there for tho duration of the war, and gone home after the war—if Germany had won. This hara-kiri policy can mean just one thing—the German High Command fears Germany is going to lose the war, and that at the end of hostilities her ships will become Allied property."

Two Firemen Missing. The American cruiser Tuscaloosa, which found the German liner Columbus sinking outside the neutrality zone, sent a radio messagdthat she was l heading for New York with 579 survivors, including nine women, said an earlier message from Washington. A" muster of the crew of the Columbus had shown that two firemen were missing.

The liner was on fire from stem to «tern and wiw sinking slowly when the Tuscaloosa left her.

It is believed there were no other casualties. The German Legation at Mexico City, however, states that there were 030 Germans on board. Seventeen Chinese members of the crew refused to make tlie dash across the Atlantic, and three Italians had deserted earlier.

The Tuscaloosa reported that the hull of the ship, aiui 22 Iwats from which the crew were picked up, constituted a menace to navigation. It is believed the Tuscaloosa, stopped to destroy these and .Also to make certain the Columbus was •inking.