INTENSIVE SEARCH

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 130, 29 November 1939, Page 9

INTENSIVE SEARCH

THE DEUTSCHLAND

ROYAL NAVY ACTIVE

NORTHERN WATERS

NAZIS NOT ANXIOUS TO FIGHT

KBy Telegraph —Press Association—Copyright.) (Received November 29,' 10 a.m.)

LONDON, November 28.

The Royal Navy, in tempestuous leather, during the brief daylight in northern waters, is making a most intensive search for the Deutschland and the other warship which sank the Rawalpindi. , The naval correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says the weather favoured the escape of the Rawalpindi's attackers. It can readily be understood that the one thing the Deutschland dreads is to be kept in sight for any length of time by a faster British warship, because sooner or later this will entail having to fight an opponent of superior force.

It is now apparent that it was not the Deutschland which sank the Africa Shell off Portuguese East Africa. It was probably the Admiral Scheer.

It is learned that the Chitral which picked up the' survivors from the Rawalpindi is also an armed, merchant

cruiser.

According to an unofficial account of the battle, the second enemy ship was the cruiser Emden.

A number of the Rawalpindi's lifeboats got safely away, but the Deutschland, travelling at great speed, swept -past so close that several were overturned by, her wash. A survivor said: "It almost seemed as if she tried to overturn us. Several seamen struggled 'in the icy waters. A few English-speaking German sailors lined the Deutschland's deck rails and shouted: 'Is it cold down there? We hope you have a good night.'" The Chitral was on patrol duty when, sne sighted a lifeboat from which she' took aboard nine men exhausted after

an hour's exposure.

The following

'' - morning the Chitral saw an overturned " lifeboat with a man lying over the keel. He waved to the ship feebly. His arms and legs were frozen stiff. He had been lying in that position for 13 hours and was more dead than

alive when taken aboard,

' Two days previously the Chitral captured 32 members of the crew of a German cargo steamer which tried to evade the contraband control by masquerading as the Norwegian steamer Ada. The .Norwegian flag was also painted on the side of her hull. She ignored the Chitral's order to heave-to. However a shot across her bows stopped her, but before a prize crew could be sent aboard the crew scuttled the ship. As the Germans boarded the Chitral they boasted that the;Deutschland would soon rescue them. ' " *