WHARF DISCOVERY

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 September 1945, Page 2

WHARF DISCOVERY

THIEVES OPEN EFFECTS OF DEAD

SYDNEY, Sept. 6. Cases containing the personal belongings of dead American airmen and soldiers were tampered with during loading of the U.S. merchant ship Carolinian at Lee Wharf, New-

castle, last week-end. TJie iron binding had been removed from several cases, but it was impossible to tell

whether anything had been stolen because ships’ officers had no inventory of the contents of the cases. The personal effects of the Servicemen who had been killed in the Pacific war were being returned to their next-of-kin in the United States. The master of the Carolinian, Captain Rosol, had been ordered to fill empty spaces in his ship with wool, but after the incident he declared to men on board that he would go without some of the wool because if he stayed. any longer in the port he “would not have a ship to take to i sea.” Two men were detected interfering with the cases containing the Ser-

vicemen’s belonging by the third mate on the ship,. Mr. Fields, but when the police were called by the chief officer, Mr. R. Barry, Fields was unable to identify the men. Detectives were informed that after the discovery was made the men had been allowed to leave the ship. They questioned a number of wharf labourers in connection with the matter, but efforts to obtain information as to the contents of the cases could not be made because of the Captain’s anxiety to get away. The incident was followed by a strike of wharf labourers working on the ship, but the labourers denied

that the strike had any connection with the police investigation. They claim that the strike occur-, red because a winch-driver was ordered from his job by a stevedore and that the men refused to fill the position and left the ship. They also claim that the men who had handled the cases containing the Servicemen’s propertv did so in order to find out whether it was cargo that should have been transferred to another position. Work was resumed after a break of several hours, and the ship sailed for the United States leaving behind a quantity of wool for which, there was room on board. "