John Dykes, of South Shields, declared he had not seen daylight for three weeks until this morning. "It is good to breathe God's own fresh air again," he exclaimed.
Describing how they were rescued, one of the prisoners from the Ashlea said: "It was the finest bit of work I have ever seen. It was all over in half-an-hour and ten minutes after the boarding party arrived, we were on board the Cossack."
Describing the scene whn the Norwegian boarded the Altmark at Bergen, one of the rescued men said the prisoners tried to break the hatches and door open. "We were all blowing whistles and shouting" he continued "and we pushed a home-made Union Jack through a hole in the hatch. The Germer. guard caught it, and then let go, and we Copenhagen, Feb. 18.
(Continued on page 8, col. 3)
London, Feb. 18.
The Norwegian Minister, Dr. Erik Colban, was summoned to the British Foreign Office last night to hear the British Government's view on the Altmark incident. Simultaneously he lodged an official protest on behalf of the Norwegian Government.
Later the following official statement was issued: "It had been for some time common knowledge that 300 to 400 British prisoners for some months past had been living in quite intolerable conditions aboard the Alt-mark. This fact must also have been known to the Norwegian Government. It was, therefore, with surprise that His Majesty's Government learnt the Altmark had been allowed to leave Bergen with the prisoners still aboard, and to proceed southwards inside Norwegian territorial waters towards a German port.
"Knowing what they did about the ship, it was to be expected the Norwegian authorities would have thought it necessary to detain her and make a more thorough search, if their efforts failed to reveal definite proof of the prisoners' presence aboard.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.