FJRENCH GUNBOAT SUNK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 83, 5 October 1914, Page 7

FJRENCH GUNBOAT SUNK

BY GERMAN CRUISERS. OFF PAPEETE. PARIS, Friday, midnight. Official. — The German cruisers Scharn* horst and Gneisenau, on 22nd September, sank the disarmed French gunboat Zeleft, off Papeete, and disappeared after bombarding Papeete. * CONSIDERABLE PORTION OF TOWN DAMAGED. With respect to the announcement of the bombardment of Papeete by the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, His Excellency the Governor has received information to the effect that the gunboat Zelee was destroyed, and a considerable portion of the town damaged by shell fire. J!he Governor has also received assurance from the Admiralty that they have the situation well in hand. [The Zelee was the little gunboat, old and slow, which recently seized the German tramp steamer Walkure and conveyed her from Makatea to Papeete. The Walkure was the first ocean steamer to visit New Plymouth. She afterwards came to this port for overhaul. The cruiser Gneisenau is a vessel of 11,420 tons, 28,806 h.p., completed at Bremen m 1908. Her armament consists of eight 8.2 m guns, six 5.9 in. guns, twenty 3.4 in guns, and fourteen smaller guns. She steams 23.8 knots, and carries a complement of 764. The Scharnhorst, 11,420 tons. 27,759 h.p., is the same age as the Gneisenau , is similarly armoured and equipped, but is a slower vessel, steaming 22.5 knots. She carries the same crew. Papeete is the capital of Tahiti, an island belonging to France, which gives its name to a small archipelago, also called the Society Islands, in the mid-Pacific. It is more than 2000 miles north-east of New Zealand, and some 3400 miles south-south-west of San Francisco. The population of all the islands is about 20,000. Papeete,, in the north-east, has a good harbour. Of. Polynesian stock, the natives are a handsome race, light-hearted and polite, but very immoral and untrustworthy. In 1842 France forced a protectorate . over the eastern, cluster of islands, and in 1888 extended it to the whole. In 1903 Tahiti was united with other colonies as the French Establishments in Oceania.] RUSSIAN SHIPS NONE LOST OR DAMAGED. PETROGRAD, 3rd October. The Russian Naval Staff states that no Russian ship 3 have been lost or damaged since the beginning of the war. GERMAN SEAPLANES ON PATROL DUTY. (TIMES AND SYDNEY SUN SERVICES.) LONDON, 2nd October. A Grimsby trawler reports that six German seaplanes are patrolling the German coast, supervising the shipping, circling vessels, and compelling suspects to steer for German ports. DESTRUCTION OF LOUVAIN AN OFFICER SUSPENDED. PARIS, 3rd October. Major Yon Mantiuffel, formerly of the 33rd Rpgiment, who destroyed Louvain, has been suspended. It is rumour, ed that this is the first act of a German Commission which is in Belgium investigating atrocities by the troops.