SPANISH SHIP SUNK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24828, 30 January 1942, Page 6

SPANISH SHIP SUNK

LYING AXIS ALLEGATION BRITAIN RESPONSIBLE RUGBY, Jan. 28. An Admiralty communique states that another Spanish ship, the Navemar, has fallen victim to Axis U-boats, and, as is their practice, the Axis put out broadcasts asserting that the ship was torpedoed by a British submarine. The Admiralty has previously pointed out in connection with the sinking of the Spanish ship Badalona, that the object of the Axis in making these lying allegations is to create trouble between Britain and Spain. In view of the long record of attacks by Axis U-boats upon neutral merchantmen, it is obvious where to look for the authors of this latest outrage. Nevertheless, the Admiralty states that no British or Allied submarine was at the time anywhere near the scene of the incident.

The circumstances of the sinking of the Portuguese ship Corte Real and the Spanish ships Badalona and Castillo Oropesa make' it plain that it is the deliberate policy of the Axis to deal ruthlessly with shipping off the Iberian Peninsula. In each of the three cases the sinking was clearly premeditated, and in the first two the U-boat responsible was identified as German, while the torpedo which sank the Castillo Oropesa was subsequently proved to have been of Italian manufacture.

This new attack on a ship carrying supplies to Spain from across the Atlantic may indicate that they are now hoping to cut off Spain from all trade with the outside world.

So far from being responsible for the brutal attack on the Navemar, the British Admiralty, mindful of the ready assistance given in the past by the Spanish mercantile marine to British seamen in similar circumstances, diverted two British surface warships to search the area where the Navemar was reported to have been attacked. The majority of the crew are now stated to have been saved by another Spanish vessel, so that their relatives have been relieved of the cruel anxiety caused by mendacious Axis reports that the whole crew was lost.