GUNFIRE AT SEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23592, 28 February 1940, Page 11

GUNFIRE AT SEA

ACTION NEAR SYLT GERMAN AIRCRAFT WRECK SIGHTED OFF DENMARK (Received February 27, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 26 Heavy gunfire was heard for three hours near Sylt, says a message from Copenhagen. Apparently it was directed against aircraft. It is reported from Tonder, on the west coast of Denmark, opposite the North Frisian Islands, that a German warship with the wreckage of an aeroplane on deck was seen at sea. The Bremen radio maintained silence all one evening last week. This was concurrent with British air activity on three nights. NEUTRALITY MEASURES PORTS OF THE AMERICAS PRECAUTIONS RECOMMENDED (Received February 27, 5.5 p.m.) rio de Janeiro. Feb. 20 The inter-American Neutrality Committee has recommended to neutrals that they should do their utmost to prevent merchantmen using their ports and waters as bases to aid belligerents, that merchantmen be prohibited from making, contact with belligerent warships, except to render humanitarian aid. Otherwise the committee recommended that they be considered auxiliaries subject to internment and prohibited from loading war materials, provisions or fuel for transfer to belligerent warships.

AMERICAN AIR MAILS PAN-AMERICAN DECISION "REALLY HELPING HITLER" (Received February 27, 5.20 p.m.) NEW YORK, Feb. 2C! In a leading article discussing the derision of Pan American Airways to omit tin- call at Bermuda on the Atlantic service, the New York Herald-Tribune says: ""There has always boon something a little funny about the controversy over the searching of malls by -the British at Bermuda. Now Pan American Airways helps the State Department to extricate itself. The mails no longer will be censored at Bermujla. and there is nothing Britain can do about it. "But this solution is at the cost of putting tin l United States in the position of furnishing Hitler with a free pipe-line for the importation of money and securities which may be very vainable to him, while it docs not really clarify our attitude to the blockade problem. "The United States has resigned ail neutral rights which Germany might wish to infringe, but maintains those which might embarrass the Allies, who will do nothing serious in reply. If the United States, in effect, authorises Germany to wage economic warfare with mines and torpedoes, it seems we ought similarly to authorise the Allies to wage counter-economic war with tlie blockade, the censorship, the diversion of ships and so on."