TNT Being Loaded on Ship Bound for Palestine Seized, Associated Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 4, 1948.

Click here to view the original article.

JERSEY CITY, N. J. Jan. 3 (AP)-Seventy-seven freight cases consigned to points in Palestine were loaded on a barge and towed to Gravesend Bay today when two of the cases were found to contain 5000 pounds of tri-nitro-toluene (TNT).

Police said the explosives were discovered while the cases were being loaded on the 14,000-ton freighter Executor at the American Export Line’s pier F for shipment to Haboreg, Ltd., Tel Aviv, Palestine, and to the Palestine Glass Works and Phoenicia, Ltd., both at Haifa, Palestine.

A cooper called to fix a case which had dropped and broken, found the TNT. Police opened another case and found it, too, contained the explosive. Both cases were part of a 26-case shipment to Tel Aviv. Police said they believed the 24 other cases for Tel Aviv also contained TNT.

In a 51-case shipment consigned to Haifa, one case opened by police was found to contain machinery. On the basis it could be used for manufacture of war material, the 51 cases were loaded with the 26 others on a barge which was towed to Gravesend Bay and anchored there pending investigation.

In New York, Frank Laughlin, assistant port collector of the United States Customs Service, said that 30 cases of the seized shipments, marked “used industrial machinery and parts,” were sent by the Oyed Trading Co., New York City, and other cases, marked “used industrial machinery,” were sent by the Mar-Tech Export Corp, New York.

Laughlin said that “falsely declaring” the contents of parcels shipped overseas was a violation of United States export controls. Shipments of explosives require a special license from the State Department.

The TNT was in one-pound blocks, packed 50 blocks to a box and 50 boxes to the case. The individual packages of TNT bore the markings of the United States Corps of Engineers, and indicated the TNT had been made by the Trojan Powder Co., Allentown, Pa.

At Allentown, Jesse B. Bronstein, vice president and general manager of the Trojan company said the company “has consigned no TNT outside the country in years but has made great amounts for shipment to the Army in many parts of the United States.”

Police said the cargo was taken to the dock by the Hoffman Trucking Co. of Belleville, N. J.

William Hoffman, president of the trucking concern, said his firm had been renting a truck for the past year to the Machinery Processing Co., New York City, and that it had been used to haul what he believed to be machinery.

Police ordered the pier closed and three other ships tied up there were ordered to remain until they have been examined.

Several hours after the seizure New York City police raided a three-story warehouse and found a quantity of military materiel including devices for loading 30 caliber rifle cartridges, several radio and field telephone outfits and miscellaneous army equipment spare parts.

Detectives said they believed the warehouse was occupied by the Machinery and Process and Converting Co.

Police said they also found several wooden crates one of which was marked “Pines, Tel Aviv, Palestine,” and another “Degania, Palestine, via Haifa.”

Syrian Says TNT Was Intended for Terrorists’ War on Arabs.

NEW YORK, Jan. 3 (UP)-Faris Al Khouri, Syrian delegate to the United Nations, said tonight that the consignment of TNT explosives for Palestine intercepted at the Jersey City docks today were undoubtedly headed for Jewish terrorists for warfare against the Arabs.

“The Jews have been trying to import explosives and now they have succeeded,” he said. “They are being supplied in this country with ammunition and money to fight the Arabs.”