TRAWLER NETS LIVE TORPEDO

Southland Times, Issue 23307, 17 September 1937, Page 7

TRAWLER NETS LIVE TORPEDO

POSSIBLE CLUE TO PIRATES FLYING-BOAT SQUADRON SENT TO MALTA (United Press Assn—Telegraph Copyright) (Received September 16, 10.10 p.m.) LONDON, September 16. A French trawler netted a live torpedo which has been handed over to the Toulon arsenal for identification. As live torpedoes are not used during naval practice the markings may give a clue to the identity of the pirates. A squadron of reconnaissance flyingboats from Felixstowe will leave for Malta tomorrow to participate m tne Mediterranean patrol. It will later be joined by a squadron from Pembroke Dock. , , Two annexes to the arrangement on which the naval experts have been working were signed at Geneva this morning. The first designates the zones which each Power reserves for its submarine manoeuvres on the high seas, and the second sets out the principal maritime routes which merchantmen are to be advised to follow and which will be placed under the protection of warships. , , Broadcasting on the work of the Nyon Conference, the Foreign Secretary (Mr R. A. Eden) said that the conference took as the kernel of the arrangement the rules laid down in the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and since reaffirmed in the Submarine Protocol, signed last year by all the Powers invited to the conference. The Powers did not believe that unidentified submarines would or could continue pirate attacks if these rules were enforced. They had not admitted the rights of either party to the struggle to interfere with non-Spanish merchant ships, even if the rules of war were observed. Britain’s own right to take any action to protect her own merchant ships had not, Mr Eden declared, been affected. What had been done was to authorize the patrolling vessel to counter-attack and if possible destroy any submarine actually engaged in piracy. REBELS ATTACK BRITISH STEAMER FRENCH VESSEL ALSO BOMBED ST. JEAN DE LUZ (France), September 15. The British steamer Hillfern was fired on by an insurgent trawler off Gijon and was later machine-gunned by a rebel plane which tried to set on fire her deck cargo of oil with incendiary bombs. There was no damage. An insurgent seaplane circled the French steamer Port Oendre after bombing Port Bou and a frontier rail tunnel. Coast batteries fired on the raider, which went out to sea with a Republican fighter in pursuit.