OLD TYPE VESSEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 107, 1 November 1941, Page 9

OLD TYPE VESSEL

LOST REUBEN JAMES

SINKING "A DASTARDLY ACT"

LONDON, October 31

The only fresh news of the sinking of the United States destroyer Reuben James was given by President Roosevelt at his Press conference today. He said the Reuben James was simply carrying out her assigned duty when she was sunk by a torpedo off Iceland.

The Navy • Department, when announcing the loss of the Reuben James, gave no details as to whether there were any survivors. Her normal complement is 120 men.

The Reuben James is the first American warship to be sunk in this war, though two other destroyers, the Greer and the Kearney, have been attacked. The Kearney was severely damaged by torpedo in the North Atlantic on October 17, and there were 21 casualties among the crew.. •

The Reuben James was a 1200-ton destroyer of the old flush-deck type, and was completed in 1920. She is exactly the same type of destroyer as the first American warship which was sunk in the last war. ,

CONDEMNED BY AMERICANS.

President Roosevelt told» his Press conference that he thought there was no possibility of severing diplomatic relations with Germany.

American opinion has been swift to condemn this latest act of aggression. Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it "a dastardly act which must be avenged."

In Washington there is no estimate, yet, as to what the effect of. the news will be. . Isolationists maintain that the sinking is a result of President Roosevelt's policy. The President's supporters, on the other hand, argue that the United States navy has a right to be where it is, and they say that this marks the opening of unrestricted German warfare against the navy.

In Berlin, a German spokesman declared that no report of the sinking had been received, but that the Reuben James might be the destroyer mentioned in that night's German communique as being sunk. Officials, in any case, claim that the sinking was justifiable.