TRANSFER TO DUTCH

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 126, 29 May 1943, Page 6

TRANSFER TO DUTCH

A MERCHANT VESSEL

The British Government has started to carry out an agreement made with the Netherlands in 1941 to replace some of that country's merchant marine losses with British tonnage, having transferred two ships to the Netherlands flag in the United States, and turned over several others in England, states the "New York Times."

Members of the Shipping Board of the Netherlands Economic, Financial, and Shipping Mission made the announcement .following a private ceremony in a shipyard in Brooklyn, where a recently-built 10,000-ton freighter was transferred. The ship and others are being named after Dutch painters of the seventeenth century. Representatives of the British Ministry of War Transport presented the vessel to Christian G. Meerburg and other Dutch officials, including Adrian Gips, chairman of the Netherland Shipping Committee, and Abraham Verschoor, managing director of the Rotterdam Lloyd. "In these days of global war and colossal destruction," said Mr. Daniel de Smit, head of the board, who accepted the ships, "it is heartening to rind this example of loyal support and confidence in the future. The transfer of this vessel is not only a recognition by our British allies of the Dutch spirit, and the valuable work done by the Netherlands merchant navy, but it also expresses a belief in | a future of United Nations co-opera-tion, not only in war, but also in peace. "I feel that our merchant navy fully deserves the support of our Allies in its effort to offset to some extent our heavy sacrifices towards the United Nations war effort. I am confident that this viewpoint is shared by our other Allies and will soon lead to transfer of vessels of other than British nationality." While the actual wording of the •British agreement with Holland was not made known, it was said to "imply" that after the war a system of ship allocations would be worked out on a basis that would give all the United Nations fleets relative to those that they had at the outbreak of hostilities. « The ship turned over was paid for by the Netherlands in England, and sailed to New York by a British crew. A Dutch crew from a reserve pool in America now mans her.