NEUTRAL SHIPS SUNK WITHOUT WARNING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 9

NEUTRAL SHIPS SUNK WITHOUT WARNING.

is GERMAN ADMISSION? Claim That They Were Convoyed Denied. Ie ENGINE CREW KILLED. V •c * it British Official Wireless. lr, if (Received 11 n.ni.) PUG BY, JanuHry 2(>. An announcement on the Hamburg • c radio in (lie early hours of Thursday is taken here as an admission on h Germany's part (hat tho Greek ship Ekatontnrchos Dracoulis and the f - Danish ship Tekla were sunk with- 1 l ' out warning. i he claim was made that tlicv were s in a convoy, which Germany appears 10 to try to maintain, is sufficient excuse for such attack. | It can be stated, however, that the ' Tekla was not in a convoy. She was torpedoed at .1 a.m. on January 21 in ; the North Sea without warning. She was alone, end it Mas three hours 40 ' minutes before eight of her crew were picked up by the Norwegian steamer s Ins. On the same day. but in the Atlantic, c off tlie coast of Portugal, the Greek c ship Fkatontarchos Draoonlis, also not : " in a convoy, was torpedoed without ; ( * warning. The ship sank immediately. Six men in the engine-room were killed instantly and 12 of her crew were . picked up by the Italian ship Nino ' I'S'lre and others, and were lauded at \ Pliiche. in Portugal, in, it is reported, . a half-frozen condition. , Sixteen more survivors from the < " Swedish steamer Patria (118S tons), < which belonged to the same line as the Flandria, mined and sunk last Sunday, were landed at Ilelsinghorg. Sweden, i ' says a cable message. One died on a . raft, ten were killed by the explosion, r and the fate of six more is uncertain. i The submarine war had until to-day . Y cost Sweden 27 ships and 120 lives. Seven survivors from the Norwegian 1 steamer Enid (1140 tons), which was sunk by a German submarine on January 18, have arrived at Las 1 Pal mas. Canary Islands. This makes a « total of 23 saved. GERMAN SHIP SCUTTLED, i i BUILDING OF SUBMARINES. , J LOXDOX, January 2(i. 1 1 A French communique states: "The German steamer Albert Janus, of IoOS tons, scuttled herself upon interception ( by one of our patrol boats. "Another French patrol boat successfully attacked a German submarine." The Berlin correspondent. of the Associated Press says it is most reli- | ably stated that submarine construction , j has* reached a stage where one is complcted every day. ] h The German authorities have revealed , h the presence in Germany of four addi- .. tional survivors of British submarines, , says a message from Berlin.