WARTIME INCIDENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1928, Page 9

WARTIME INCIDENT

CALCUTTA AND RANGOON. SAVED FROM GERMAN ATTACK. ENEMY PLAN REVEALED. By Electric* Telegraph—Copyright. Received January 21, 8.45 a.m. DELHI, Jan. 20. Tlio story of how during the war Calcutta and Rangoon were saved from attack by German warships is related by a former high official in the India secret service. He reveals that in the autumn of 1915 ten enemy warships were interned in Sebang, a small port north of Sumatra and near Vicobar Island. Information was received that the German naval headquarters had formulated a plan for a German warship to sail from a port in the United States and take supplies to an anti-British base at Java and from there proceed to Sabang to release interned vessels and make a concerted attack on Calcutta and Rangoon. Organised revolutionary outbreaks which had taken place in India and Burma had obviously spurred the Germans to this step. A meagre British naval force was hurriedly summoned and patrolled the Bay of Bengal during Christmas week, when the attack was expected to materialise. The Far Eastern routes were watched, but the German warship from America never reached Saban. — A. and N.Z. cable.