PLIGHT OF NAZIS

Southland Times, Issue 23988, 1 December 1939, Page 7

PLIGHT OF NAZIS

OIL AND PETROL SUPPLIES

SERIOUS SHORTAGE

FEARED

RUSSIA STRUGGLING TO FILL HOME NEEDS

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Rec. November 30, 9.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 30. The Washington correspondent of The New York Times, in an exclusive despatch, states that military and naval quarters say that Germany is facing a serious situation with rapidly diminishing oil and petrol supplies. Britain and France are getting millions of barrels from the United States, but not a single barrel of American oil is believed to have reached Germany. The frantic efforts of Germany to develop synthetic petrol factories, which she hopes to operate in 1940, are considered evidence of the gravity of the situation. German hopes of Russian supplies are baseless as Russia is pressed to fill her own needs, particularly in motor fuels, of which she imported 248,000 barrels from the United States in September. Germany’s annual petrol requirements for her estimated number of 6000 to 8000 aeroplanes would be 12,000,000 barrels, besides other requirements. The near exhaustion of Germany’s petrol reserves since the Polish campaign may explain the lack of mass flights over Britain and France now anfl the absence of attack on the Western Front. DESTROYER FIGHTS BOMBER BATTLE OFF STADTLAND ISLAND OSLO, November 29. The Admiralty reported that a coastguard at Stadtland Island saw a battle today between warships and bombers,

just outside the territorial waters. Heavy gunfire was heard further south. It was revealed later that it was an engagement between a German bomber and a British destroyer. Neither was hit.