MYSTERY SHIPS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21033, 8 December 1933, Page 16

MYSTERY SHIPS

JAPANESE VESSELS NEAR AUSTRALIA MISSIONARY'S SENSATIONAL TALES (j\ROM OUfi OWK COHKESPONMHT.) SYDNEY, November 30. Remarkable stories alleging Japanese activity in North Australian waters were told by the Rev. W. H. Macfarlane, who has just returned south after 16 years' service as a missionary at Thursday Island. He claimed that many of the Japanese luggers that were working in Torres Strait were manned by trained naval men and that a foreign submarine had been seen to sail through the strait last year. There was a general impression that the Commonwealth Government did not desire to take strong action. It was thought at Thursday Island that this reluctance to take action against the Japanese who, it was alleged, were illegally in the strait, was due to economic reasons. There was no direct evidence that the submarine he had referred to was Japanese, but it certainly was not British. A number of persons had seen it submerging. Mr Macfarlane said he thought that the Japanese had already obtained all the information they required about Northern Australian waters, and that areas that were blank on Australian maps had been charted by them. He recalled that the captain of a Japanese sampan, which had been chased, brought into Thursday Island some time ago and who protested that he spoke no English, had been recognised as a former English-speaking officer of a Japanese vessel. Other possible evidence of Japanese activities were the scuttled launches that were found on various parts of the coast. It was assumed that they had been used for. the transportation of Japanese. Romantic Area. Mr Macfarlane referred to the Torres Strait area as possibly the most romantic in Australia and its waters. Memories of the early navigators were realities there. Many relics had been found, such as swords and daggers, old anchors, ingots, and coins. At Murray Island, 120 miles north-east of Thursday Island, many eighteenth century Spanish gold and silver coins had been found. This bottle-neck of Australian waters was an area of wrecks. Vessels which had foundered there numbered between 300 and 400. Remains of many of them were still to be seen. So notorious was the area in the middle of the last century that the Governor of Queensland founded Somerset, 20 miles from the tip of Cape York, as a place of refuge for castaways. That was in 1863. With the settlement of Thursday Island about 10 years later it was abandoned, only the ruins of the residency and the homes of the garrison now remain. The islanders of Torres Strait were a mixed race, having Papuan, Melanesian, Malayan, and Filipino blood, and, often, European. They were not only cultivators but great seamen. The important marine industries were run on the basis of community ownership. Twentynine cutters and luggers so owned were employed in the beche-de-mer, pearl, and other fisheries, the value of which was as much as £30,000 a year. The administration of the natives had been good, even though some reforms were needed.