London, Feb. 16.
The Air Ministry reported Air Force casualties in its latest communique yesterday: nine killed in action; three missing. and believed to have been killed in action; one died of wounds received in action: seven missing; and seventeen died on active service—Reuter. doubts frequently expressed in German wireless and press agency reports regarding her fate she had been repeatedly given up as lost. A Deutschlandsender broadcast on December 14 reported her at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, incapable of movement. Later the same day, the Deutsche Nachrichtenbuero declared she had been shelled to pieces. Still later the same day, the German people were told through the Deutschlandsender that all three British warships (Exeter, Achilles and Ajax) were destroyed (vernichtet).
On the following day, the same wireless station announced that the Exeter had to be run on a sandbank to avoid sinking and a few hours later Zeesen, in Germany and Portuguese broadcasts, found encouragement in the new rumour that the Exeter had been sunk.
On December 16, Hamburg broadcast returned to the story that she had run aground. This was varied in a Zeesen broadcast on December 17, which roundly asserted that "after the Admiral Graf Spee was hit by the Exeter, the commander decided to eliminate the British cruiser. In this task, he was wholly successful."
The facts, which had proved so disastrous for the Admiral Graf Spee, having by that time become known throughout the world, it is said, German interest in the Exeter slackened until January 5, when an alleged rumour in "Dutch naval circles" that the cruiser had foundered on her way to the Falkland Islands, was broadcast from Zeesen. Five days later, this' story was revived by the Deutsche Nachrichienbuero and repeated on January li by Trans-Ocean.
Six days later, by which time it apparently became known in Berlin that Bahia Blanca was the name of a German ship sunk by striking an iceberg in attempting to run the British blockade, Trans-Ocean denied the tale—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.