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Page 3 of Enclosure No.5.
PIRACY OF S.S. "DELI MARUTM
(Continued).
The guards were all examined by the Hongkong Police, the seriously wounded guard had recovered sufficiently to give a clear statement which could not have been concocted in collusion with the other three. It must be explained that in the port alleyway there are three or more smell outboard cabins. Numbering from aft, No.lcontains Compradores gear and is kept locked. No.2 is used as a sleeping place by four Chinese Officers' Mess boys, No.3 is used by the guards off watch.
The seriously wounded guard's statement, condensed, is as follows : "I went on watch at midnight on the 20th. Nothing unusual occurred till about 0230 when two men came out of the cabin occupied by four Chinese male and one female passenger. (i.e. Cabin No.2 belonging to the Mess boys). I did not pay particular attention to them but as they passed me one man seized my revolver. I resisted him but the other men shot me in the chest with an automatic pistol. I was wounded by three more shots while I was lying on the deck and lost consci、usness. I awoke in the cabin after the pirates had left the ship. I have been in the "Deli Maru' 1)
since February 1928 and I have never seen the grille gates locked except the one leading to the Engine Room. As far as I know none of the Japanese officers carry arms on their persons or in their cabins".
The reports of the other three guards agree, as far as they go with this statement. They all stated that the Chinese mess-boys sell their cabin to passengers when possible, that the steerage passengers are allowed to roam about the ship except on the bridge and that the Fagine Room grille is the only one kept closed. In one point they were wrong. They all gave the time of the piracy as 0230 but there is no doubt that it occurred at 0330 as verified by the Master's fix on the chart.
From the Police retort it would appear that the gang were inexperienced as pirates. About half the passengers were either not searched at all or else were able to pass their valuables to friends who had already been searched. The officers, after being held up in the ir cabins and searched for arms and money were not otherwise molested and according to their statements they assembled in the engine room. The Compradore hid in a boat, but afterwards, when things were quiet, escaped to a coal bunker where he found most of the officers and the W/T operator. The pirates disconnected the aerial but did not tamper with the W/T instruments.
The compradore's chest containing $450 and the Master's safe containing bar-gold, value $3,000, were not found by the pirates whose total takings were estimated at $4,040 in cash and goods.
These /