Hidden U-Boat

Men?

Story of 40 Germans With Island Wives

NEWSPAPERS at the end of May car ried a remarkable s'ory from a Hamburg newspaper. They said that, in 1945, when Germany was collapsing, 40 U-Boat sailors got away from a Nor wegian port, in their submarine, and successfully made a voyage of over 10,000 miles to “a Pacific island.” There, they cast away their craft, took native wives, and settled down to a secluded communal life. According to a letter which had been posted in Wellington, New Zealand, and received by a Hamburg man, they were living in a little world of their own, and did not intend to break their isolation until 1955.

The story has all the ear-marks of a “snake-yarn.” No part of the Pacific Islands now is so isolated that 40 Euro peans could live there for a number of years, without someone becoming aware of their presence. The posting of a letter in Auckland immediately suggests Poly nesia as the hideaway; but inquiries among New Zealand, British, American and French administrations (which cover all Polynesia and most of Micronesia) have disclosed no hint of the al eged “sub mariners’ paradise.”

The story is not impossible. But there are thousands of islands also in Melanesia and Indonesia. Neither is a 10,000 miles voyage by U-Boat. German submarines, in World War 11, many times made the voyage between Eurooe and Japan.