THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 7, 1939
FORMER H.K. WOMAN'S TERUKUNI MARU ADVENTURE: "NUTTY" WAS SAFE, TOO
NEW YORK CONSULAR DEATH SENSATION
New York, To-day. Walter Engleberg, secretary of the German Consulate-General,
was
found dead in his Brook- lyn house yesterday with his skull smashed.
There were signs of a struggle.
The police found en- ough supplies of food and wine in the house of Engleberg, who was 'un- doubtedly murdered, to keep a man for a year.
They also found 18 packing-cases of dried and tinned food in the garage. Reuter.
GERMAN PRESSURE
ON HOLLAND
|THE EXPERIENCES OF Mrs. Helen Swailes, who travelled from Hong Kong in the Terukuni Maru, and who escaped without difficulty in a lifeboat, are related in a message just received from London.
Mrs. Swailes is the wife of a naval officer and she was following her husband to England from the China Station when the Terukuni Maru struck the mine.
After the disaster, the survivors were taken to a London hotel and it
that was there
Mrs. Swailes met her husband.
As the hotel door opened and shut, writes a correspondent, weary figures came into the brightness from the gloom outside.
One of the first was a woman whose face was strained and tired. A man wearing a naval uniform who had been waiting in the lounge near me ran forward and shouted "Helen, Helen."
He threw his arms around her. They kissed and both sobbed with joy.
DOG WAS SAFE, TOO Mr. Swailes, after his first joy, ask- ed after Nutty. Nutty is a spaniel and a great pet.
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Swailes, whose face was still lighted up with smiles. "Nutty is safe. Came away in the lifeboat with me."
As Mr. and Mrs. Swailes left the hotel arm in arm many of the hotel staff watched them go and wished them luck.
That was one happy side to the second sea tragedy in a few days of which this hotel had seen the later
scenes.
BIRD OF ILL OMEN Passengers told me that some of them had not been easy since Joe, the bath steward, caught a falcon off Beirut and kept it on board.
ITALY AND AXIS
Rome, To-day. 'Italian students held another, anti-Soviet demonstration yes- terday.
The Italian newspapers give great prominence to Lord Hall- fax's statement on Tuesday in the House of Lords, in which he em- phasized the Nazis' responsibility for the Soviet aggression on Fin- fand-Reuter.
I am not superstitious I admit I did not like it. The falcon, I believe, perished with the ship."
"We felt a terrible shock," she said. "The whole ship reeled and turned half over. I rushed on deck and it was difficult to get out because of the list. There were shouts: 'Fetch your lifebelts, fetch your lifebelts.'
"I ran to my cabin, but the key of the door had been flung out of my and I could hand by the explosion not open it. Another pasenger, who must have known that every minute was precious, said he would fetch me a duplicate key, and he gave me those precious minutes and brought me a key.
"FELT QUITE SAFE"
"I grabbed my lifebelt, but did not take any clothes. I have nothing but what I stand up in. The lifeboats were launched and my lifeboat near- ly turned over.
"The discipline aboard the ship was marvellous. Everyone was quiet
"We did not like the idea of having a bird of prey on board," said one of the women to me. "Joe used to feed it with scraps every day, and although and calm.
SIEGFRIED LINE MOVES ON BELGIAN FRONTIER:
INFANTRY
WITHDRAWN
course of construction.
One will be
finished next Saturday at Vogelsang, close to the Nazi leaders' school.
The frontier guard also said that which
the 26th Division of Cologne
has held the region behind the
Siegfried Line since the beginning of September has been sent to the Saar
front.
GERMANS LIVING IN AACHEN (Aix-la-Chapelle) and Some strong points are still in Berlin, To-day. all along the Belgian frontier, who until about a month ago An officially inspired state- were extraordinarily reticent, now speak much more openly ment was issued here yester-about conditions in Germany. day on the British two-way The main reason for the change is the unhurried calm blockade and the reaction of with which the Allies are prosecuting the war. This is neutrals.
deepening their conviction that Hitler is not in this case The statement says: "Now that the dictator of events, as he was in his conquests British and French warships have been of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
They are becoming nervous and curious and their been going on for a whole week. confidence in the Fuchrer is waning.
The propaganda leaflet raids of British airmen are also puzzling them.
Instead of taking shelter when Astonishment is expressed in Ber- British aeroplane passed so low over lin that the Netherlands does not at Aachen that the noise of the engine present arm her merchantmen and was heard like that of a motor-lorry organise her own convoys. — Reuter, climbing a steep hill, they tried, in
ordered to enforce the confiscation of German exports, political circles may expect the governments behind neu- tral shipping to be no longer content with "paper protests," but to organise self-help to protect their trade."
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TA PERIA DEL
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a
TROOPS MOVING SOUTH Troops movements southwards have
Two Army corps are stationed be- tween Aachen and the Rhine and the spite of having been forbidden, to get | German divisions which fought in possession copies of the leaflet, which Poland are billeted in Central Ger- urged that the German Press should many hs reserves. publish in full the last speech of Mr. Chamberlain.
YELLOW ARM-BANDS
Workers from the Siegfried Line, conspicuous in their brown uniforms with yellow arm-bands, are crowding into Aachen. They were sent on holi- day and few will return as workers. They are to undergo two months' special, training as army reservists.
Cafes have to remain open during the hours that soldiers are not drilling or working, and alcohol and beer are freely sold. If food is below, the nor- mal German level of quality it does not seem lacking in quantity.
Chicory and coffee are unobtain- able. In their place are sold roasted and compressed figs which have a remarkable flavour. The soldiers seen about Aachen all belonged to the infantry and the ar- tillery. None was wearing the black uniform and black beret of the me- chanised divisions.
PRISONS FULL OF SOLDIERS It is said that prisons and barracks along the frontier are full of soldiers guilty of offences against discipline.
One of the frontier guards said that nearly all machine-guns and anti-tank guns, as well as the In- fantry manning them, have been. withdrawn from their positions In front of the drying. concrete
In the Siegfried Line.
The only troops coming from Poland which are on the Siegfried Line are those which did not take part in the fighting.
Young German officers declare that the war will end with the decay of the British Empire ́be. cause England Is left to fight practically alone, It is significant to note that they added:
"As soon as a single French soldier crosses the Belgian border we shall immediately rush a mass of divisions into Belgium.”
An older officer, who fought in the 1914 war, spoke, however, in quite a different tone.
EXPECTATION OF OFFENSIVE "Before September," he said, "peo- ple in Germany believed in the possi- | bility of a revolution caused by
famine in case of war.
"They do not think so now because food is more abundant than was ex- pected and, above all, because they realise from the executions that have been carried out for minor misdeeds that Herr Himmler, the Gestapo chief, and the strongest man of the Nazi regime, has taken measures instantly to crush any rising.”
The man-in-the-street, typified by an old Prussian railwayman, gave his views.
ex-
"Hundreds of thousands of young men of the labour companies," he Frontier guards, armed only said, "are drilling to become army with rifles, have taken over their reservists, because the army is duties,
pected to start a big offer sive against Rhineland recruits when off duty | French fortifications in a few days. practise with pioneers assaulting con- "It is openly admitted among the crete points. These exercises -are | Infantry that the losses for such an often conducted in the dark with com- | enterprise must be estimated at 60 per развев.
cent of each battalion in aetion."