HOLLAND'S BAD DAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 46, 23 February 1940, Page 7

HOLLAND'S BAD DAY

Loss Of Over 14,000 Tons Of Shipping. NEW DANISH RESTRICTIONS. (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, February 22. Yesterday was the blackest day for Dutch shipping since the outbreak of the war, four ships being lost, says a message from Amsterdam. These were the steamer Tara (47G0 tons), the trawler Petten (270 tons), the tanker Den Haag, and the motor ship Alja (385 tons), which sank after striking a wreck, the crew being saved. The total lost was 14,366 tons. The trawler Petten struck a mine in the North Sea. The crew was picked up. A fishing boat landed 23 survivors from the Tara yesterday, says a cable from Helsinki. The Tara sank rapidly after several explosions in the middle of the night. The Norwegian steamer sunk by a U-boat and reported earlier as the Teenstad, was the Steinstad (2476 tons). The Government has forbidden Danish ships to navigate in the North Sea south of latitude 61, which passes through Bergen and the Shetland Islands, unless accompanied by other neutral vessels, says a Copenhagen cable. A message from Rio de Janeiro says the German liner Antonio Deliino (13,589 tons) has left Bahia. The vessel is camouflaged. RUTHLESS METHODS. Nazi Brutality In Warfare At Sea. SINKING OF ESTONIAN SHIP. Britlsih Official Wireless. (Received noon.) RUGBY, February 22. Nazi methods of sea warfare are well known. Not only are ships of every type, armed or unarmed, fishing ships or lightships, but ships of every nation, neutral as well as enemy, ,are torpedoed or bombed from the air and their crews ruthlessly machine-gunned. There is no need for further evidence to convince anyone of the utter lack of humane instincts of the Nazi authorities who order such action, or individuals who carry it out. It is remarked with interest in London naval circles, however, that even the official Nazi wireless service, in describing the sinking of the Estonian ship Linda, does not disguise the fact that the crew was not given time to take to the lifeboats before torpedoing the vessel.

The "Transocean" of last Tuesday, referring to the sinking of the Linda, said: "She sank within ten minutes. The death of one member of the crew, it Was established, was due to the fact that this man, at the moment the ship was sinking, was in a bathtub, and had jumped into the ice-cold sea with no clothes on, upon which he suffered heart failure." PRISON SENTENCES. Britain And Swedes Spying Against Sweden. SHIPPING INFORMATION. (Received 11.30 a.m.) STOCKHOLM, February 22. D. W. Beach, a Briton, who was arrested on February 13, was convicted of obtaining information at Swedish shipping ports intended for a foreign Power. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Two Swedes were also charged, all of whom were sentenced to I varying terms. The Court declared that the accused divulged the movements of Swedish shipping, resulting in seizure and loss.

Beach, who was an employee of the Swedish branch of a British firm, is a well-known sportsman in the British community.