Information Leakage Concerning Holmwood

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 5, 7 January 1941, Page 6

Information Leakage Concerning Holmwood

SENSATIONAL ALLEGATIONS BT RELEASED PASSENGER SYDNEY, Jan. 4. Uaptalni of enemy commerce raiders In the Pacific boasted to their prisoners that they received detailed intelligence of naval and merchant shipping movements, according to survivors landed at Emirau Island and now in Australia. The Australian Minister for the Navy, Mr. Hughes, has indicated that it would l«e dangerous to dismiss the reports as Nazi bombast. The uncanny accuracy with which the raiders have intercepted victims and escaped detection is fair evidence that they are not operating blindly. Unofficial deductions are that the raiders are getting precise informs tlon of secret routing, and that they are getting enough information to give them an approximate idea of their victims’ positions. Serious Allegations One survivor has made allegations which directly implicate someone or some organisation in New Zealand. This man, a high judicial officer, who, because of his official capacity, would not allow his name to be published, said that Nazi officers on the Tokyo Maru. one of the raiders, told him that they knew the exact contents of the Holmwood's cargo as soon as she left for New Zealand on September 25. A reporter who met the survivors when they landed in Australia wrote: "The survivor alleges that, through his wife, who speaks German, he was able to learn who had supplied the raider with the information about the Holmwood’s cargo. ‘I will give the Government this evidence, and T believe it will lead to a number of arrests in New Zealand,’ he said. ’' Knew all About Cargo The survivor said that the Germans on the raider knew exactly how many tons of butter and how many sheep we’re on board the Holm wood. "One of the officers told me.” he said, "that they tried to pick up the Holmwood on its previous trip because it had the sort of food the raiders wanted. ‘We knew exactly where to pick her up,’ this officer said, ‘but we were delayed arfew hours seeing to another ship, and so we decided to let the Holmwood go until the next trip.* ” The judicial officer said that his wife did not disclose to the Nazis that she could speak German. "But,” he added, "she listened to many conversations from which she got the most sensational disclosures. I was staggered by the information myself, and I feel that I should not make the details public before the Commonwealth Government has been informed. Some months ago, in my official capacity, I recommended the arrest of certain people whom I regarded as Fifth Columnists, but the authorities chose to do nothing aV>ut it.” Most Disquieting News Captain H. L. Upton, of the Kangitanc, said that the Holmwood officers told him that the Germans had boasted to them they would be capturing a big ship he next day, and had even given the position where they intended to intercept the liner. "Actually I was about 15 miles away from the point,” said Captain Upton, "but that was because of a difference in our Great Circle reckoning. It was most disquieting to find how much they knew.” Miss Marjorie Osborne, previously an escort for evacuated children to New Zealand and one of the survivors from the Rangitane, discovered that the raider on which she was imprisoned, and which was flying Japanese colours, had visited at least one Japanese port earlier. During visits to the ship’s hospital to have her shrapnel wounds treated, she found that medical supplies were Japanese. She was also lent books that had Kobe Library stickers on them.