RAIDER'S VICTIM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24474, 6 December 1940, Page 5

RAIDER'S VICTIM

FATE OF PASSENGERS AUSTRALIAN STATEMENT DIFFICULTIES OF SEARCH "It is evident that there is a number of raiders," said the Australian Minister for the Navy, Mr W. M. Hughes, announcing in Canberra the loss of a British ship 400 miles off the coast of New Zealand last week. Mr Hughes's statement followed the lines of that issued officially, in New Zealand. "While I am unable to give further details," he added, "the relatives and friends of those on board the ship reported to have been attacked and now presumed to have been captured, naturally feel somewhat anxious about their fate, and what has happened to them. ' "I would like to point out that the experience of the last war and of this —for instance, with the Altmark—shows us that we must assume that both the ships' complement and the passengers are taken on board the raider. Though they may be exDosed to some privation, still, there is no reason to believe that ultimately they, will not be returned safely to port and eventually be restored to their friends and relatives. "It is evident that there is a number of raiders We have the attack on the convoy in the Atlantic, our own experience with the Port Brisbane and the Maimoa, and now this ship. This indicates that there is a number of these raiders but how many we do not know.

"Reports from the Admiralty indicate that the whole ocean is being carefully combed to destroy them and the supply ships on which their very continuance at sea depends. It will be appreciated that the difficulty of the task to which the Royal Navv is devoting itself at this moment is immense. The ocean is vast, and the difficulty of detecting a ship is not less than that of finding a needle in a bundle of hay."