SCAPA FLOW RAID

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 68, 21 March 1940, Page 5

SCAPA FLOW RAID

GERMAN EFFORTS TO SECURE DETAILS LONDON. March 39. It is learned officially in London that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill, recently in- ! -pert eci new defences at Scapa Flow ' i designed to withstand submarine and . other attack. j The measure of German anxiety to ; discover with certainty and in detail the results of the Orkney (Scapa . Flow > raid may be gauged by the I extravagance of Nazi claims, obviously made in the hope of provoking the British Admiralty into detailed denials from which reliable information * could be deduced. • Th? Times points out that when as .on that occasion the attack was made [at dusk, presumably to minimise casualties to the attackers, it is difficult, if not impossible, for airmen to ■observe or photograph either the fall [of their bombs or the identity of •'.heir targets. The German command i must therefore rely for its knowledge | upon such information as Britain an ' be induced to give in its public announcement. "Those, therefore, who hear H.M.S. Hood. Repulse. Renown, 'and other ships cited in German com- ' muniques as having been hit by bombs | will recognise the motive with which j the claims are made.’’ Amusement Caused Interest caused by the German High Command’s claims to successes in Saturday evening’s Scapa Flow raid is deepening into amusement after a reported broadcast by the commander of the Nazi raiders. Major Albert Doensch. who is said to have claimed that his force made “direct hits with larger bombs on the Hood, Repulse, and Renown.” Although this is the first time the Germans have claimed to have damaged the Renown, the Hood, according to their former claims, must have been too much damaged by previous successful Nazi assaults to be seaworthy yet, while the Repulse has been almost perpetually included as "severely damaged” whenever Nazi propagandists considered the time ripe for a little heartening news. The wide divergence of the German claims from the actual facts is thought to lend colour to a suggestion from neutral countries that the raid was specially ordered by Herr Adolf Hitler in an endeavour to impress Signor Benito Mussolini with the superiority of the German air force.