BRITON LOST ON SOVIET BORDER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23023, 13 August 1949, Page 5

BRITON LOST ON SOVIET BORDER

(N.Z.P.A. —Reuter —Copyright.) (10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 12. Britain had for a month tried unsuccessfully to obtain from Russia information'on the disappearance on the Soviet-Pinnish border ofi a British student, Mr. Norman Greene, said the Foreign Office spokesman today. Hp added that the Soviet authorities had stated thev had no information, but further inauirics would be made if information was not forthcoming from them. Mr. Greene had been working as a volunteer at an international forestry camD at Licska. !H miles from the frontier and had gone with three friends to bathe in a lake on the frontier.

Mr. Greene was cycling ahead of his friends and when they reached the frontier they found his bicycle and words written in the sand which indicated that lie had crossed the frontier to have a look at the other side. The Associated Press correspondent in Helsinki reports that friends of Mr. Greene heard two gunshots soon after Mr. Greene had crossed the border, but the Finnish frontier guards told them to keen it secret.

According to an official Finnish investigation, Mr. Greene had apparently been planning for his disappearance behind the iron curtain some time in advance.