NEUTRAL SHIPS SUNK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 13

NEUTRAL SHIPS SUNK

FRENCH SETTLE A U-BOAT

ANOTHER SCUTTLING

(British "Official Wireless.)

(Received January 27, 12.45 p.m.) RUGBY, January 26.

An announcement on the Hamburg radio in the early hours of Thursday is taken here as an admission on Germany's part1 that the Greek ship Ekatontarchos Dracoulis and the Danish ship Tekla were sunk without Warning. The claim was made that they were in a convoy, which Germany appears to try to maintain is sufficient excuse for such attack. It can be- stated, however, that the Tfekla was not in a convoy. She was torpedoed at 5 a.m. on January 21 in the North Sea without warning. She was alone and it was 3 hours 40 minutes before eight of her crew were picked up by the Norwegian steamer Iris. The same day, but in the Atlantic off the coast of Portugal, the Greek ship Ekatontarchs Dracoulis, which was also not in a convoy, was torpedoed without warning. The ship sank immediately. Six men in the engine-room were killed instantly. Twelve of the crew were picked up by the Italian ship Nino Padre and others landed at Peniche, in Portugal, in, it is reported, a half-frozen condition. A^ French communique states: "The German freighter Albert Janus (1598 tons) was scuttled on being intercepted by one Of our patrol ships. "A U-bOat was successfully attacked by one of our patrol ships." The Latvian steamer Everene (4434 tons) was torpedoed after leaving a British port. The crew were saved. DEPTH CHARGES DROPPED. The crew of a Norwegian ship which arrived at an English port reported that they saw destroyers in the North Sea drop depth charges, after which oil and wreckage, apparently from a j U-boat, came to the surface. A Berlin report, says that the authorities have revealed the presence in Gfermany of four additional Britishsubmarine survivors. The survivors from the British steamer Biarritz comprise seven mem? bers of the crew and 14 passengers. Forty are dead and three missing. All the passengers were asleep at the. time of the explosion, which sank the vessel within a minute. Forty-one on the lower deck, most of whom were clad in pyjamas, rushed to the upper deck, many jumping into the water before the crew lowered a motor-boat and only three were picked up. One wireless operator and two passengers died en route to Ijmuiden. ' Seven survivors from the Norwegian steamer Enid, which was torpedoed and shelled off the north-east coast of Scotland on January 18, have arrived at Las Palmas. This brings the number saved to 23. Sixteen additional survivors from the Swedish steamer Patria (1188 tons), which belongs to the same line as the Flandria, which sank on January 21 after striking two mines off the Dutch coast, have been landed at Helsingbdrgi One died on a raft, ten were killed by the explosion, and the fate of six is uncertain. ,'

The submarine war hitherto had cost Sweden twenty-seven ships and 120 lives.