DAYS IN CAPTIVITY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20452, 13 January 1941, Page 3

DAYS IN CAPTIVITY

WIRELESS BULLETIN KNOWLEDGE OF SHIPS EMIRAU ISLAND COMEDY “A GIFT FROM REICH” SYDNEY. Jan. 7. Snugly ensconced in hotels and boardinghouses, survivors from the ships sunk by German raiders spoke appreciatively of Ihc hospitality they have received since they landed m Australia. "You Australians know how to treat a man in trouble," said a Cockney seaman, and his sentiment was echoed by a dozen of his mates. The clothing and toilet requirementsof about 100 of the raider survivors will be issued at the Sydney headquarters of the Red Cross. The chief, demand was for shoes, socks and razors. In their temporary homes —they have “moved” three times in recent weeks—the survivors laughed over the lighter moments of their captivity. They were greatly amused, for instance, by the one-sheet, typewritten, news bulletin in “English,” headed “Wireless For Prisoners,” which their guards handed out every day. These are extracts from the bulletin issued on Friday, December 13: “London. German raiders tonight ressumed their bolitz offensive after 60 hours of comparative quiet, brasting a town in the sily industrialled west midlands with hims explosives and numerous incendiearies. The german .raiders adopted their usual tatics of battrering at the city in waves, first I droping incendiaries bombs to light [ targets and then looking explosives on I the city. Numerous areas were | splotched with bombs, and direct hits i soredon a schools house and a bus. "Berlin. The high command announced to-day that british planes last night dropped mob of occipied territory in southwest germany damaging a german childrens and building in liealal plans.” Surprisingly enough, the captains of the raiders, although they would not allow prisoners to listen to news broadcast from Australia or Britain, recorded in one of the bulletins the Italian rout in the Middle East. This news was loudly cheered by the prisoners. No Time For “Heils” One of the Manyo Mam prisoners, Neville McMillan, who was taken from the Holmwood, said: “During all the time I was aboard the prison ship. I -aw no one give a Nazi salute or say ‘Heil. Hitler!’ The only evidence of Adolf I saw was his picture, which stood on the doctor’s dressing table.” When the Holmwood was stopped by the German raider, Mr. McMillan had to rouse passengers and tell them to prepare to leave the ship. Among the passengers was a woman in the throes of sea-sickness. “I approached her bedside, told her we had been stopped by a raider, and asked her to get up and get dressed,” said Mr. McMillan. “She looked at me for a moment, said ‘Who cares?’ and nulled the sheets over her head again. I had quite a job to get her to prepare to leave the ship.” Mr. McMillan, like many another raider victim, is worrying about tjie promise extorted from the prisoners that they would not again take up arms against Germany or put to sea in any armed vessel. Prisoners were i told that if they broke this promise , and were recaptured they were faced i with the death penalty. “I regard this promise as having no ; value because it was extorted under duress,” said Mr. McMillan. “No raider is going to keep me ashore. If;, I want to go to sea in an armed vessel/' then I am going.” , j The chief officer of another ship, Mr. William Menzies, of Perth, Scotland, ■ said: “Where in war-time am I going to find a ship that does not carry a‘ sun? I have a wife and kiddie to keep. ; What is going to happen to them it' 1/ cannot go to sea again?” Raider Captain's Jest

Sometimes the Germans indulged a sense of humour. Their final joke was. perpetrated on the day on which the survivors were landed on Emirau; Island. At 4 a.m. the commander tookpossession of the island in the name of the R'eich. At 2 p.m. lie informed Captain IT. L. Upton, of the Rangitane. that he had much pleasure in handing it to him as a present from the Reich. Captain Upton gave it back to Mr. Cook, the resident commissioner, after the raiders had left.

By; a curious coincidence, a woman prisoner received, as an issue of clothing from a ship that was sunk, a hat and dress which was on its way to her In Nauru as a Christmas present from a friend in Sydney. Some of the survivors say that their captors divulged their knowledge of shipping movements because they thought that Germany would win the war within two months.

Mr. J. Hales, second baker of the Rangitane, was taken into the galley of The Tokyo Marti to bake for his own crew. He shared a cabin with the German paymaster-baker, who had learned English as a prisoner in the last war. One night, after four vessels had been sunk, the Manyo Marti and the Tokyo Maru steamed oJT, leaving a raider known as the Black Panther. The paymaster remarked casualty that it had remained to “kill” a Norwegian cargo vessel which was expected. Next day events proved that he had spoken the truth. : On the Manyo Marti, Mr. E. Grootnhvidge, assistant steward on the Rangitane, was shown a plan made, he was told, by the German chief of police. It showed a victim ship in the centre of a triangle made by raiders, and pointed out how impossible it was for the doomed vessel to escape. Five Victims in a Day On December 7. prisoners on the Tokyo Marti were addressed by an officer. “To-morrow you will not be allowed on deck at all,” he announced, “because we shall have a busy day.” Next day five vessels were sunk. Members of the crews believe that the raiders obtained much useful information from correspondence seized on vessels before they were sunk. Mr. W. A. Small, steward of the Rangitane, said that some of the captured airmen were taken to the captain’s cabin on ttie Tokyo Maru and shown photographs, taken from the air, of the Rangitane leaving Auckland. At Emirau, 50 tins of aviation oil were taken from the Tokyo Maru to the Black Panther.

At a small group of populated islands, where two small boats were seen lying by the shore, the Tokyo Maru supplied the Manyo Maru with petrol, and at Emirau it supplied the Black Panther.