ATTACKING SHIPS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24154, 22 December 1941, Page 5

ATTACKING SHIPS

JAPANESE SUBMARINES COASTS OF AMERICA RUSSIAN VESSEL BOMBED (Reed. 6.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, Dec. 20 Rear-Admiral Greenslade, Commandant of the 12th Naval District, said in San Francisco to-day that it has been confirmed that there are enemy submarines operating off the California coast and destroying American shipping. A report from San Francisco states that two American oil tankers have been attacked off the coast. An enemy submarine described as "very big" came to the surface 20 miles off Cypress Point, near Santa Cruz, California, and fired eight shots at an oil tanker proceeding from Los Angeles to San Francisco. AH the shots missed. The freighter Emidio sent out an SOS off Cape Mendocino saying she had "sustained a torpedo attack" by a submarine. The United" States Navy Department, in emphasising the need for curtailing weather reports, states that enemy submarines have been operating off the Atlantic coast. In this connection it was revealed that there was evidence that enemy submarines had profited by at least one weather broadcast in which the temperatures in specific localities were given. From these figures deductions as to high visibility were easily made. Three submarine chasers were launched in the United States yesterday. An American skipper who msdea record wartime voyage from America to Egypt with supplies for the Middle East armies, said in Alexandria in an interview that Japan had organised her merchant navy .for war. All her new freighters had gun emplacements which no attempt was jnade to conceal, also sealed bulkheads containing all equipment necessary to convert a merchantman to an armed raider. A message from Batavia says 17 Japanese aeroplanes attacked the Russian freighter Perekop, of 2493 tons, in Netherlands Indies waters. She was bound from Vladivostok to Sourabaya. Eight of the crew were killed, and 29 others, including three women, were rescued.