UNPLEASANT MOMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 64, 13 September 1943, Page 5

UNPLEASANT MOMENT

LONDON, September 12. The story of how five of the Italian warships now at Malta got safely away from the Germans was told by a young naval officer who was on board Britain's new battleship King George V. He says that the British battleship steamed right into the Gulf of TarantO and within sight of the shore batteries to collect and escort the Italian ships. It was a tricky moment and everyone was at action stations... "It was not the Italians we were worrying about," said the officer. "We knew they were likely to observe the terms of the armistice honourably and in full measure, but we did not know what the Germans were up to. "We had been shadowed all day by reconnaissance planes and we never knew when the Luftwaffe might make an attack. Shortly after dark we spotted the five warships astern of us. We did not know what they were and we challenged them by. signal* flashes in Morse. "Back came a message spelling the letters G.A. Then we knew it was all right. That was the signal Admiral Cunningham had asked the surrendering warships to use."