GERMAN NAVAL RAID.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10113, 22 October 1917, Page 5

GERMAN NAVAL RAID.

TWO BRITISH DESTROYERS AND NINE MERCHANTMEN SUNK. Australian-New Zealand Cable Association. LONDON, Oct. 20. The Admiralty reports that two fast heavily armed Gorman raiders attacked on Wednesday a convoy in the North Sea between Shetland Islands and the Norwegian coast. Two British destroyers, the Mary Rose and Strongbow, who formed an escort, engaged the raiders and fought until they were sunk after an unequal engagement. Their gallant action delayed the raiders, enabling three merchant vessels to escape. Five Norwegian, one Danish and three Swedish vessels,_ all unarmed, were sunk without examination or warning and regardless of the, lives of the crews. Passengers in a lengthy comment on the action of tho Germans say that this notion was unnecessary, and only adds another example to the long list of the criminally inhuman deeds of the German navy. Tho Admiralty adds that tho German vessels anxiously escaped before the British forces could intercept them. Thy made no effort to rescue the crews of the British destroyers. They also left the doomed merchant ships, leaving British patrol vessels to rescue thirty Norwegians and others of whom details are yet unknown. The German navy, by this, act, once more and further degraded itself by disregard of the historic chivalry of the sea. The enemy in an official message states that the attack was within territorial waters in the neighbourhood of Shetland Islands, and that all escort vessels, including the destroyers, were sunk, excepting one of the escort and fishing steamers. Hie Admiralty declares that the German statement of the locality of the attack and destruction of escort vessels is untrue. Tho enemy raiders succeeded in evading the Bi tish watching squadrons during the long dark nmhts both in their hurried outward dash and homeward flight. It is regretted that ga officers and men of the Mary Rose and 47 officers ami men of (he Strongbow were lft ' h BERGEN, Get. 20. Ten men, including two officers, of the Mary Rose landed hero having, been rescued'bv the lifeboat of a Norwegian steamer to which they had clung.