LOSSES OF SHIPS FOR WEEK

Southland Times, Issue 23998, 13 December 1939, Page 7

LOSSES OF SHIPS FOR WEEK

Six British Vessels And Eight Neutrals

ESTONIAN STEAMER LOST (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, December 11. Shipping losses for the week ended December 9 were:— British—six vessels of 23,432 tons Neutral—eight vessels of 26,612 tons It is officially stated that the following British ships are overdue and must now be considered lost: —Ashlea, 4222 tons; Newton Beech, 4651 tons; Huntsman, 8196 tons; Trevanion, 5299 tons. The wireless operator was playing cards when the British steamer Willowpool struck a mine in the North Sea. He managed to send out an S O S before the apparatus was disabled. The whole crew reached a lightship and were landed at an East Coast port. Several were slightly injured. An unknown submarine has sunk the Estonian steamer Kassa, which is not listed by Lloyds, in the Baltic. Two of the crew were injured and one is missing. A Navy drifter, the Ray of Hope, was sunk by a mine. Only three were saved. The captain was blown into the air and was able to swim until picked up. The Admiralty knows nothing about the German claim that two British tankers were sunk in the Channel at the week-end.

On the eve of the meeting of the League Assembly, the new 22,000 ton steamer Stalin, built in Holland for the Soviet, quietly slipped out of Amsterdam for Russia.

NAZI PLANE CHASED FROM COAST FLIGHT OVER YORKSHIRE AT GREAT HEIGHT (Received December 12, 7.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 11. Royal Air Force fighters chased away a German aeroplane, believed to be a Heinkel, flying over the Yorkshire coast at a great height. Fishermen on the south-east coast sighted a second German aeroplane flying low through the clouds.