ATTACKS ON LIGHTSHIPS

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21036, 12 February 1940, Page 6

ATTACKS ON LIGHTSHIPS

For reasons that are best known to the Germans, and which probably have something to do with a mental attitude that differs from that of the British, the Nazis insist on violating international laws and ordinary humanitarian principles, regardless of the cfecency of their actions and of the possible consequences to themselves. The latest and most objectionable violation is the attack upon defenceless lightships in the waters surrounding Britain and off the coasts of Europe. Always in the past these ships have been considered safe from enemy action, and for that reason they have never been armed or called upon to give any assistance in reporting the movements of enemy ships. Germany has been attacking these anchored craft systematically and violently, machine-gunning and bombing the crews and sinking the ships. Can such action be distinguished from ordinary coldblooded murder? The position has become so serious that Britain has decided to replace the lightships wherever possible with floating lighted buoys. Germany will in the end lose far more than she can hope to gain by such wretched tactics. Her excuses are utterly unconvincing. The sinking of such harmless craft is on a par with the attacks on neutral ships, and incidentally as dangerous to the seaborne trade of the neutral countries as to the ships of Britain and France.

It may be contended that the destruction of lightships is defensible as a means of wrecking enemy ships and of assisting to break the blockade. Or it may be said that in the murk of the English Channel lightships are indistinguishable from ordinary merchant or naval craft, but these excuses do not hold good. In the first case it has always been understood that undefended lightships are exempt from enemy attack, and if Germany intended to make war upon them against the law she should have made her intention known so that the crews at least could have been rescued from their hopeless predicament. In the case of the second excuse, Germany knows just as well as do the Allies where the lightships are stationed, and if the Nazi airmen were influenced by even the most elementary sense of chivalry they should be able to distinguish them and to spare the defenceless keepers. The Nazis are clearly out to wreck and to smash without the slightest regard for the rules of warfare or of ordinary humanitarian instincts.