French agents tell of bombing action

Press, 27 June 1987, Page 8

French agents tell of bombing action

PA Wellington ' The two French military frogmen who placed bombs on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior, sinking her in Auckland Harbour almost two years ago, have revealed details of the action in a book to be published next month. Although the operation, codenamed Titanic, caused the death of a Greenpeace photographer, Mr Ferdinand Pereira, the two said their orders were to avoid any risk to human life on either side. The book “Mission Oxygen,” has been previewed by "Paris Match.” Radio New Zealand reported “Paris Match” as

saying that after extensive training the frogmen landed in New Zealand on July 7, 1985, the day the Rainbow Warrior entered Auckland Harbour.

The night attack on the Rainbow Warrior involved a 3000 m trip aboard a Zodiac inflatable boat when the lights of Auckland were unfortunately bright another 500 m hooked on below the boat, and then the last stretch to the target 5m underwater. One diver fixed a Ikg bomb to the rudder gear, and the other fixed a 15kg bomb to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior.

They set the bombs at 8.50 p.m. to go off in three hours. They then returned

to be picked up at a rendezvous. Their immediate chief drove them away from the scene, nearly knocking over a motor-cyclist who happened to be a policeman, but who did not press charges when he heard their foreign accent, the men said. Even at Auckland Airport, when the two frogmen were leaving New Zealand, one of them was held up for anxious moments at passport com trol by a woman officer who did not understand why a French resident in Tahiti should have a French address. The French bombers’ brush with the law came as a surprise to the man

who headed the Rainbow Warrior investigation, Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith. “I don’t know about that particular incident, if it’s correct,” he said yesterday.

“With all the furor at the time about camper vans; I would imagine any traffic officer who came upon a camper van that night would have been in here very quickly.”

Mr Galbraith said the police were keen to hear any “opposition” version of the Rainbow Warrior bombing but were unlikely to follow up this report because the men involved were inaccessible to New Zealand police.