London, Jan. 16. The five British masters who were captives aboard the German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee when she ran into Montevideo harbour after her encounter with- three British cruisers, arrived at Tilbury from Uruguay today. The five were captains of the vessels Africa Shell, Stonehall, Newtonbeech, Trevalon and Astilea, all of which were sunk by the Graf Spee during her short reign as a raider in the south Atlantic, Interviewed by newspapermen, all the former skippers concurred in the view that the late Captain Hans Langsdorff, commander of the Graf Spee; scuttled his ship outside Montevideo harbour on December 17 upon strict orders from Adolf Hitler himself.
"Captain Langsdorff," as one of the captains put it, "was not a man to sink his own ship. He would have preferred to fight it out with the British ships waiting outside Montevideo"—Havas.
Torpedoed Ship Had No Contraband Aboard The Hague, Jan. 17.
Because of the torpedoing of the 8,000-ton Dutch steamer Arendskerk by a German submarine on Monday in the Bay of Biscay, two other vessels of the United' Netherlands Shipping Company of The Hague are at present held up at Flushing and had no contraband aboard, only Belgian goods from Antwerp for Cap town and Durban.
The ship was torpedoed after being searched. The Italian steamer Fedora saved all the crew, numbering 65. There were no passengers.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.