ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SHIP

Evening Star, Issue 26029, 18 February 1947, Page 7

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SHIP

CAPTAIN AND CREW ARTICLED IN AMERICA (Rec. 8 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 17. The Haifa correspondent of the ‘ Daily Mail ’ confirms that the Jewish immigrant ship which the Navy intercepted was the Ulua, whose captain and crew are articled in the United States merchant navy. The Americans, .being better seamen than the crews of many previous illegal ships, managed, with help of bad weather, to dodge the Royal -Navy on Saturday night. The ship escaped from two British destroyers which had picked her up. This was because the radar in Royal Air Force planes on tailing duty had failed. The Navy at dawn found the Ulua with 1,400 Jews on board. As the illegal immigrant ship drew alongside the quay in the winding light of searchlights, the Jews on board started singing against the background of shouted orders among the troops on the quayside and the hooting of tug whistles. Haifa Bay echoed for three hours to the blast of depth charges which police launches dropped to discourage “ frogmeu ” from laying limpet.mines on the sides of ferry ships. Forty men of the Sixth Airborne Division, chosen for their physique and armed with wooden staves, relieved naval parties on the ship. The vessel has been renamed “ Ship to Freedom,” which is scrawled in Hebrew below the bridge. Underneath was a placard in English, ” Nelson, look at your heirs,” The Army accomplished the disembarkation smoothly. Major-general Bols, military commander in North Palestine, said that four Jews and two British sailors who were brought ashore were sick, and not fcijured.