GERMAN RAIDER MET

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 7 December 1940, Page 5

GERMAN RAIDER MET

ACTION IN SOUTH ATLANTIC SHIPS ENGAGED AT LONG RANGE THE CARNARVON CASTLE SLIGHTLY DAMAGED [U.P.A.-By Electric Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 7th December, 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, 6th December. The Admiralty announces that the armed merchant cruiser, Carnarvon Castle, was in action yesterday with a fast and heavily-armed German raider in the South Atlantic.

Full details are not yet available, but it is clear that both ships engaged at long range. There was heavy firing on both sides and a considerable amount of ammunition was used by the Carnarvon Castle as she sought to get to closer grips with the enemy. The Carnarvon Castle received slight damage and there were some casualties. It is not yet known what damage the enemy ship received. She was lajt reported to be steaming northward at a high speed away from the scene of the action. It is understood that the action occurred about 700 miles north-east of Monte Video. SOUTH AMERICAN THREAT HALTING OF STEAMERS REPRISAL AGAINST BRITAIN HIO DE JANEIRO, sth December. A British warship is reported to have halted the Brazilian steamer Parah. Diplomatic quarters reported that there is a movement in several South American countries to close American ports to British ships as a reprisal for the Itape affair. In Washington to-day the State Secretary, Mr Hull, said the United States was ' investigating the reports that a British warship halted the Itape. [A message from Rio dc Janeiro on Wednesday stated: The president of the inter-American Neutrality Committee, Mr Afranio Mello Franco, said sanctions against Britain might be taken if the committee were given the Itape case to study. A British auxiliary cruiser, he explained, halted the Brazilian coastal ship Itape, on Ist Decemebr and removed 22 German passengers, some of them allegedly from Tacoma, Mexico.]