BAD TREATMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 11

BAD TREATMENT

BRITISH CREWS

LIFE ON GERMAN TANKER

LONDON, January 19.

Treatment reminiscent of the slaVe traders was meted out to the crews. > of British merchantmen who were placed as prisoners aboard' an unnamed tanker supply ship to the^Admiral Graf Spec, according to first-hand stories now *evealed. The men were herded in overcrowded quarters. Their mattresses were covered with lice, and there was a ration of a quart of verminous water daily. Both drinking and washing were done in one period.

There were several, hundred prisoners aboard and only twenty bowls for the use of masters, .officers, and the white and lascar crews. No soap was provided, and the food was scarce, and bad eating utensils improvised from old condensed milk tins were provided, and exercise in fresh air was" limited to 75 minutes daily if the weather was good.

Smoking was strictly prohibited in the first fortnight, after which it.was strictly limited. Anyone smoking at an unauthorised time or place was sentenced to three days' solitary confinement on bread and water in a cell the size of a locker.

The organisation of the prisoners' life was base' 1 on concentration camp methods. The German captain, a ruthless Nazi with marked political bias/ was a striking contrast to the Admiral Graf Spec's captain. Deliberate steps were taken to humiliate the British officers in front of their crews,. particularly the lascars.

Machine-guns posted at vantage points and manned day and night continually covered the prisoners.

It is believed that at least 300 prisoners are still aboard the tanker, for which British warships are hunting through the Atlantic. It is understood that some of her prisoners were transferred to the Admiral Graf Spec and subsequently put ashore at Montevideo.

46-MISSING MEN

ILL-FATED TANKER

(Received January 20, 12.45 pm.)

LONDON. January 19,

The families of 46 men from the tanker Inverdarele (9456 tons), which was sunk off the south-west coast, have been informed that the men are missing and believed lost. The owners of the ship say that the victims included nine engineers, four officers, and a wireless officer, mostly from Scotland and the North of England, the majority of the remainder being West Indians.