London, June 27. Under instructions from Whitehall, the British Ambassador in Ankara will express to the Turkish Government Britain's great concern and sympathy for Turkey's loss of the steamer Rifha.
It will be recalled that the Rifha was sunk by the Germans with a serious loss of life on, Wednesday afternoon.
A report on the sinking was given by Ankara radio this afternoon. The announcer said that a torpedo cut the ship in two and sent it to the bottom before even one lifeboat could be lowered.
Of the 201 passengers on board 173 were lost.
The Rifha according to the an-nouricer, carried an illuminated Turkish flag on the stern and other illuminated designs on either side—
Reuter. affacked Kiel and Bremen on Wednesday night had to battle against electric storms which one pilot described as the worst he had ever seen, One aircraft was twice thrown up 200 feet and was at times nearly out of control, The night was a test both for crews and aircraft, states the news service of the Air Ministry, but for many the reward came when they broke to a clear sky and saw flames rising to a great height from shipyards at Kiel, At Bremen, it was more difficult to see the results, but a good load of bombs was dropped on the target.
1t is believed that the German pocket-battleship, which was hit by torpedoes from aircraft of the British Coastal Command a short time ago, may be lying at Kiel, Since the night of the torpedo attack, Kiel has been raided four times, More attacks on Wednesday night were made on docks at Boulogne by aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command.
The sustained offensive of the last lew weeks, it is stated in London, has shown that a summer night is not too short for effective bombing, Up to a late hour yesterday evening, there were no reports of enemy activity over Britain yesterday, A workman living in a country cottage in south England found a large parcel of German propaganda sheets which had been dropped in a recent raid, He has been given permission to sell the leaflets for one penny each in aid of the local Spitfire fund, Three Italian Planes Downed Three Italian planes were shot into the sea and another seriously damaged over Malta on Wednesday, says an R.A.F. Middle East communique. No British machines were lost in this action.
In Cyrenaica R.A.F, bombers raided landing grounds at Gazala; fighters brought down a Fiat and damaged a number of other aircraft. Bombs were dropped on ships at, Benghazi during the night of June 24, a number of fires being started near moles.—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.