SAVED FROM ATTACK

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 21 January 1928, Page 5

SAVED FROM ATTACK

CALCUTTA AND RANGOON EPISODE OF GREAT WAR. SECRET SERVICE DISCLOSURE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT Received 1.1.20 a.m. to-day. DHLHL, Jan. 20. A. story of how during the Groat War Calcutta’and Rangoon were -saved from an attack by German war-ships is related by a former high official in the Indian Secret Service.

lu autumn, 1915. ten enemy war ship® were interned in Salbang, a small port north: of Sumatra, near Nicobar Island. Information was received that the German Naval heat-quarters had formulated a plan that a German warship should sail from a port of the Western United States with supplies to an anti-British propaganda base in Java. It was then to proceed to -Sabang to release -any interned vessels and make a concerted attack on Calcutta and Rangoon. Organised revolutionary outbreaks took place in India, and Burma- which were obviously part qf the enemy propaganda and were a preparation for a possible landing. A meagre British Naval force was hurriedly -summoned and patrolled in the Bay of Bengal during Christmas week when the attack was expected to materialise. The far eastern routes we-re watched, but the German war ship from America never reached Saba-ng.