U-BOAT CRIME

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 234, 28 June 1920, Page 5

U-BOAT CRIME

VANISHED SKIPPER. Application was made in tho Probate Division of the London Law Courts by Mr. T. Bucknill for leave to presume the death of Captain Dan Owen, late of Cardigan, who belonged to Hie Merchant Service, and is supposed to have been taken aboard a Gorman submarine und murdered. On 'January 17, 1918, said Mr. Bucknill, Captain Owen left Alexandria in tho s.K Windsor Hall on a voyage to Marseilles. At 9.i5 in the evening of that day his ship was torpedced by a German submarine and foundered, 'flic i rev wore taken off in tats, and Captain Owen and other officers went off in a lifeboat. The submarine came to flic surface, covered the. bout with guns, and demanded the captain of tho ship. The other people raid ho was not on board the boa;, tout the Germans seem to have identified him toy his uniform nnd they took him on hoard the submarine. The snbniarino disappeared in the darkness; ;;nd frcm that moment Captain Owen had never been heard of. Mr. Ducknili! said tho Admiralty niadu inquiries through the Spanish Embassy. The German Government replied that there was no report that a vessel was sunk on tho day in question by a German submarine in the vicinity of Alexandria, and added, "as probably an Austrian submarine may too concerned, inquiries should be made in Vienna." Mr. BnckniU: It. is not likely that if taken en board and subsequently "disposed, of" thero ivouM bo any report in regard to the ship. Tho reply from Vienna was that reports with regard to Austrn-Umigarian submarines had been most carefully examined, and they showed that r,o submarine was operating within an area of 35 miles N.W. of Alexandria on the dale in question, mid that Captain Owen's namo did not figure in any list of prisoners of war. Tho President: Your supposition is that the man was murdered? Mr. Bucknill: There is no doubt about it, my Lord. Tho President gave leave to presume death on or since January 17, 1918.