WORKING FOR ALLIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1943, Page 4

WORKING FOR ALLIES

TWO FRENCH DESTROYERS Eec. 11.45 a.m. RUGBY, August 24. British and American light naval forces engaged in normal sweeps of the coast of Calabria Peninsula, states a North African naval communique. It announces also that the French heavy destroyers Le Fantasque and Le Terrible are now working in active co-operation with the Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean. The communique adds that in a recent message to the American naval military forces concerned, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham mentioned the admiration with which he watched the splendid and rapid advance of the Seventh Army to Messina during the Sicilian campaign. He said that he was fully aware of the great contribution made .by the American navy, and asked that his satisfaction might be expressed to all the American naval personnel on the north coast of Sicily on what became a model of the effective application of sea power in support of land operatoins. The French destroyers Fantasque and Terrible are two of the French ships in French African ports which came over to the Allies when the Allied forces Janded in North-west Africa last October. Both vessels, which belong to the Fantasque class, have a displacement of 2569 tons. They are probably. the fastest destroyers in the world, all the vessels of this class having a speed exceeding 43' knots. The French claim that the Terrible reached a record speed of 45.25 knots. The Fantasque and the Terrible accompanied the French battleship Richelieu to New York to be made ready for fighting.— B.O.W. . I