U.S. May Protest Over Neutrality Zone Violation If Proved; Whereabouts of s, Southgate Secret Washington, Mar, 3.
The report of U.S. Navy planes that they had sighted the British steamship Southgate, which had reported itself attacked by a submarine, and that the vessel was "in no apparent danger, left a mystery, here last night as to whether the planes had actually sighted the Ship or whether it had really been attacked by a submarine.
!'The' Navy Department declined to reveal the Southgate's position, saying the information was confidential. No United States submarine was due to be operating in the vicinity of the Southgate, the Navy Department said, thus eliminating the theory that the ship possibly had sent out a distress signal upon being approached by a United States submarine.
It was believed that if it was ascertained that the Southgate was attacked by a submarine within the Caribbean, the United States would protest.
It was expected that President Roosevelt would call the heads of the Departments of State, War and the Navy and Coast Guard to his office immediately upon his return to the White House from his vacation trip in an effort to determine the veracity of the reports.
Administration officials said that apparently the Southgate's report was false. They said it seemed not a serious threat to American neutrality. Navy men believed that the Southgate captain had been mistaken in reporting a submarine had been sighted.—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.