WAR NEWS IN BRIEF

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 December 1944, Page 3

WAR NEWS IN BRIEF

NORWEGIAN MARINE.

RUGBY, Dec. 24

Preliminary steps towards rebuilding the Norwegian Mercantile Marine, of which nearly 50 per cent, has been lost during the war, are announced by the Norwegian Minister of Shipping. Swedish shipyards have already practically completed the construction of 300,000 dead-weight tons of merchant ships on orders placed by a Norwegian mission, while contracts for an even larger tonnage have already been placed. At a British shipyard a large floating whale factory is now being built for next year s whaling season. BRITAIN’S BATTLESHIP. LONDON, December 24. “Britain’s new battleship, launched recently, is the world’s largest capital ship,” savs the German News Agency’s naval correspondent. “The ship displaces more than 45,000 tons and will be armed with nine 16-inch guns.’ The German report adds that the battleship is named Vanguard, and would not be completed before 1946.

HITLER’S HEALTH.

LONDON, December 25

Goebbels, broadcasting a Christmas messages to the German people, said: “The Fuehrer’s thoughts are always with his people, by clay and during sleepless nights. When our enemies depict him as sick, the wish is father to the thought. What he has to say to the world will be heard in due course. It is already hearing more than it likes. “I never saw the Fuehrer so full of plans and visions as during the last weeks before our western offensive.” ARREST AtIhGHT CLUB. (Rec. 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, December 25. A German spy wearing an American uniform was arrested last night in a night club in Paris. A girl singer at the night club stopped in the middle of her number pointed to the man and shouted: “Arrest him.” Allied soldiers sitting at nearby tables seized the man and handed him over to the French police. The singer recognised the man as having been a frequent visitor to the night club during the German occupation of Paris. REFUGEES IN SWITZERLAND WASHINGTON, Dec. 25. Switzerland is sheltering 90,000 civilian military refugees, equalling 2.2 per cent, of the total Swiss population, says a Swiss Legation announcement. Military internees number 16,000, of whom 1500 are American airmen landed in Switzerland after bombing missions in Germany. There are 3300 prisoners of war who escaped from countries adjacent to Switzerland. PRINCESSES’ PANTOMIME RUGBY, Dec. 23. The King and Queen enjoyed a Christmas pantomime to-day, in which Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose were the principal performers. The pantomime was “Old* Mother Red Riding Boots.” The Princesses danced and sang a number of old-fashioned and up-to-date songs together. They wrote most of the script, bringing in pieces, from many traditional Christmas stories.