JAP CRUISER SUNK IN MALACCA STRAIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 117, 19 May 1945, Page 5

JAP CRUISER SUNK IN MALACCA STRAIT

BRITISH FLEET ACTION

Aircraft Score Powerful Bomb Hit

N.Z. Press Association —Copyright l Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, May 18. An Admiralty communique reports that British warships and aircraft of the East Indies Fleet sank a Japanese Bin gun cruiser of the Nati class in Malacca Strait, about 50 miles west-south-west of Penang.

The Japanese' ship, which was accompanied by destroyers and. several smaller craft, was first sighted by a Fleet plane, which bombed her and reported her position to the surface vessels. Naval aircraft attacked the cruiser with bombs and scored one powerful hit. A destroyer, H.M.S. Pomeroy, steamed to the spot and intercepted the enemy forces.

Malacca Strait, the narrow waterway between the large Netherlands East Inches island of Sumatra and Malay Peninsula, is the main sea route from India to SmgaP °The Natl class cruisers of the Japanese Navy are each of 10,000 tons displacement and carry a complement of 092. Ten eight-inch guns were originally mounted,. also six four-inch anti-aircraft guns and 16 smaller guns. There are light torpedo tubes and each ship carries four aircraft with two catapults. The Nati class cruisers each cost £2,200,000 and all were extensively refitted between 1934 and 1936. Further refits were undertaken between 1939 and 1941.