FUEL FOR U-BOATS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 250, 20 July 1942, Page 6

FUEL FOR U-BOATS

Agents Operating In Central America (Received July 19, 7.30 pan.) NEW YORK, July IS. According to an authoritative source, a secret fleet of about 40 fishing craft and small freighters is supplying oil and other materials to Axis submarines in the Caribbean Sea and Mexican Gulf, says the New York “Post’s” Mexico City correspondent. Boats from hideouts in jungle-cov-ered inlets south of Yucatan and north of Panama sail nightly for a rendezvous with U-boats. Most of the hideouts are so well camouflaged iu the lush tropical foliage that they are almost undetectable. Fuel Purchased Openly. Fuel for the submarines is obtained openly when a small freighter purchases a reasonable amount of oil for its own use but repeats the procedure at a nearby port, thus accumulating large stocks which are eventually transported to the U-boats by small highpowered fishing boats chartered by Axis agents ashore. One group of agents operating from Belize, British Honduras, was recently rounded up, but others are still free. The chief agents are Germans, but the actual smugglers are mostly Spaniards, members of the Spanish Falange which is operating clandestinely in Central America.

Vessels of the Spanish transatlantic line, it is reported, also supply U" boats from special oil drums not listed in the ships’ manifests. Measures against these activities are hampered because Spaniards are not considered Axis aliens in Mexico and Central America and therefore are not expelled from the coastal areas. • Anti-Submarine

Lieutenant-General Andrews, United States commander in the Caribbean, said submarine attacks in this area had decreased recently. The anti-sub-marine measures were apparently most effective and would be greatly .increased in the future.

The loss of a number of Allied merchantmen as the result of attacks by Axis submarines is announced by the Navy Department. A large United States merchantman was torpedoed In the Caribbean with the loss of five lives. While 46 survivors drifted in a lifeboat they heard an explosion in another ship. They were later joined by a lifeboat containing 15 survivors. Both lifeboats were picked up by another merchantman, which was torpedoed the same night. A Dutch ship was torpedoed in the Caribbean in broad daynight with the loss of two members of the crew. A small British merchantman was sunk off the coast of South America, three members of the crew losing their lives. A Japanese submarine torpedoed an American ship in the Indian Ocean. Six lives were lost. It was earlier reported that an Axis submarine operating close to the shore in the Gulf of Mexico torpedoed and set fire to a medium-sized United States cargo vessel which was at anchor. The Navy Department disclosed this in announcing the loss of four more merchant vessels, in which 29 men perished. The other sinkings were a medium-sized Norwegian merclmutinan 300 miles off the Atlantic coast, a small Norwegian merchantman which was torpedoed in the Mexican Gulf, and a medium-sized United States vessel which was sunk off the North Atlantic coast, of South America.