PLANE ATTACKS SUBMARINE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 1, 26 September 1939, Page 8

PLANE ATTACKS SUBMARINE

U-Boat Reported Sunk STORY OF FIGHT IN ATLANTIC By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received September 25, 8.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, September 24. The American Farmer brought 29 survivors from the British ship Kafiristan, which was torpedoed by a submarine on September 17. The master, Captain John Busby, reported that the submarine was sunk by bombs from a plane, believed to have been attached to HALS. Courageous. The plane arrived unseen and machine-gunned and bombed the submarine, achieving a direct hit. A Daventry broadcast says the survivors of a British steamer who arrived at New York aboard an American ship, gave an account of a battle between an R.A.F. flying-boat and a German submarine, which sank their ship in the Atlantic. Six men were drowned when a lifeboat was launched while the ship was under way. The crew was told by the captain of the submarine that he was sending out an SOS, but that if help did not arrive he would tow the lifeboats astern. As if out of nowhere, one of the survivors said, a British bomber swooped down like magic. It sprayed the submarine with machine-gun bullets and nine men on the deck of the submarine scrambled down below. Some observers thought that the hatch of the submarine was left open. The bomber wheeled, dropped two bombs, and disappeared. The master of the ship said that one bomb struck the conning-tower squarely, and in his opinion it was a fiftyfifty chance that the submarine sank. —By radio. SHIP SUNK WITHOUT WARNING Twelve Men Reported Lost (Received September 25, 11.15 p.m.) LONDON, September 25. The Hazelside, of 4646 tons, was sunk without warning. Twelve of the crew of 24 are reported to have been lost, including the captain. SWEDISH SHIP SUNK Carrying Wood Pulp To Britain LONDON, September 21. A message from Oslo states that the 1510-ton Swedish steamer Gertrud Bratt, while on her way to England with n cargo of wood pulp, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine 15 miles off Langesund. A Norwegian torpedo boat rescued the crew of 18. Witnesses said that an aeroplane accompanied the U-boat. The Finnish Government protested to Germany in connexion with the sinking of the Martti-Ragnar, by a German submarine, when carrying a cargo •of wood pul)) to England. CONVOY SYSTEM French Navy’s Success (Received September 25, 8.10 p.m.) LONDON, September 25. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Paris correspondent says the French navy is using the convoy system so successfully that several big French liners, carrying thousands of passengers, including many Americans, have crossed the Atlantic without the slightest danger. The North African and other trade routes are also functioning without interruption. GERMAN PRIZE COURT Establishment Announced (Received September 25, 8.10 p.m.) BERLIN, September 25. The German official wireless announced that the Reich Ministry of Justice has established a prize court, which it hails as proof of the “continued success” of Germany’s counter-blockade. It added that the court would pronounce sentences in strict accordance with international law. LIFE IN U-BOATS Effect Of Ceaseless Strain (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 24. Twenty-eight days at sea, haunted all the time by the knowledge that every man’s band, as well as the sea itself, is against you—that is today the situation of the German U-boats which were on the trade routes of the Atlantic before the declaration of war, stated an evening bulletin of the Ministry of Information. Twenty-eight days of ceaseless strain in cramped quarters must tend to sap the morale of the young submarine crews. The available resources of the trained German submarine personnel are limited. The strain on the crews of tlie U-boats must have been great, for the German submarine warfare lias been answered in no uncertain terms by the anti-submarine craft of the Royal Navy.