U-BOATS IN PACIFIC

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1940, Page 7

U-BOATS IN PACIFIC

WITH RUSSIAN BASE The Latest Possibility

[Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.J (Received March 20, 1.26 a.m.) NEW YORK, March 19. The New York “Times” Shanghai correspondent reports that British, French, Japanese and United States Naval officers are focussing their attention on the Commodore Islands, as it is known that the Soviet is now fortifying Bering and Mcdny, the main islands of the Kamandorsky Group, with a strong submarine base in the Bering Straits. It is feared that the Russians may grant to Germany the use of the base for raids on shipping in the Pacific Ocean, in the event of the Allies becoming embroiled with the Soviet. A large group of German Naval officers flew to the Kamandorsky Islands during December. They remained there until late in January. ■ln, addition, twenty German submarine commanders visited the Kamondorsky Islands during January, as they did earlier in November. Moreover, German Diesel engine experts, from the Reich, the United' States, Mexico, China, and the Philippines, have gathered at Valdivostok and have flown to these islands in parties of twelve. The twenty-one Germans whom the British Navy seized on January 2, from the Japanese liner “Asama Maru” on the Pacific, had tickets to Germany, but the British authorities at Shanghai believe that this was a blind, as most of the Germans seized were going to the Kamandorsky Islands.

There are Russian submarines in the Pacific Ocean which were fabricated in European Russia and were sent to Vladivostok and there assembled. If they are granted the use of the Soviet Base in the Islands tfc£ Germans would be able to do wise.