Yellow flares in submarine hunt

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33083, 25 November 1972, Page 15

Yellow flares in submarine hunt

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright.) OSLO, November 24. Helicopters today were investigating the sighting of green and yellow flares in a narrow fiord where more than 30 Norwegian Navy ships are hunting for a foreign submarine.

Yesterday, the commander of the Norwegian Armed Forces suggested that the submarine might be sunk if it did not respond to warnings. The Defence Command last night confirmed that the flares had been seen in a branch of the Sogne fiord, north of Bergen. Norwegian planes and Navy ships have been searching the fiord for the submarine —- perhaps Russian—for 14 days. The Command .said that a sonar contact in an arm of the fiord opposite where the flares had been seen did not involve a submarine. SONAR CONTACT

The Command gave no explanation of the fact that the Norwegian frigate Trondheim had made a sonar contact with a submerged object for about 60 minutes and that it had fired a homing device to try to force it to the surface. The Norwegian Defence Minister (Mr Kleppe) told his Parliament yesterday that military measures were being taken to force a possible submarine to surface so that it could be identified. Political observers in Oslo said, however, that it was unlikely that the Government would order ships to sink a foreign submarine.

It was more likely that it would try to reach a facesaving arrangement with the Government concerned. ‘WARNING GIVEN’ Mr Paul Thyness, deputy chairman of the Norwegian Parliament’s Defence Committee told reporters in Bonn last night that the submarine had been warned and that it would have to surface soon.

Mr Thyness, who is attending a N.A.T.O. conference, said that it was impossible to tell whether electronic jamming had come from the submarine or from elsewhere. There were many stranglooking trawlers with radio aerials cruising outside Sogne Fiord, he said.