SABOTAGE PLOT TO BLOCK DANUBE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 84, 9 April 1940, Page 7

SABOTAGE PLOT TO BLOCK DANUBE.

"BRITISH SCHEME."

Amazing Report From Nazi News Agency.

"PLAN HATCHED IN RUMANIA."

United Press Association.—Copyrigh*.

(Keceired 11.30 a.m.) LOXDOX. April 8. The official German news agency has disclc sed an alleged "colossal British sabotage plot" to block the Danube by exploding hundreds of tons of dynamite at Iron Gate Pass, to damage the banks and sink barges in the channel.

"It was discovered on Fridav that, accompanied by fast British "motorboats and six tugboats, 94 barges and two other ships were passing up the Danube. An indiscretion of one member of a crew revealed that the convov carried 100 hngiisli specialists and members of the British Army, Xavv and Air Force.

"The leader was the chief of the British Secret Service in Rumania, who was disguised as the vice-consul. All the personnel were arrested at Giurgiu, 40 miles south-west of Bucharest, by the Rumanian police, who found 400 crates of high-powered explosives and many revolvers, grenades, mines and depth-charges in the ships. The cargoes were described as goods in transit. "This was an act of war against Germany prepared on neutral soil. Germany was constantly making contact with Rumania regarding the plot." A Budapest report says the barges were loaded from British freighters in the Black Sea. Police boarded tugs and identified the "British Admiral Pais." The Bucharest correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says British officials explain that the dynamite was for blowing up British and French river barges, tinkers and tugs in the event of a German invasion of the Balkans. Xo trace of an Admiral Pais can be found in references.