NAVAL ACTIVITY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 31, 16 November 1939, Page 5

NAVAL ACTIVITY

ALLIES’ CLOSE CO-OPERATION. GOOD WORK OF FRENCH FLEET. FLANS READY BEFORE THE WAR. 'United Press Association —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, - November 15. Many competent naval authorities believe that close co-operation between the French and British navies is likely to prove one of tho decisive factors of the war. Anglo-French naval co-opcr-ation was planned before the outbreak of war. The exchange of visits by French and British warships to each other’s ports this summer* was an example of the close touch maintained between the two Administrations. The result was that when war was, forced upon the Western democracies by Herr Hitler the plans for close naval cooperation between the Allied navies were ready to ho put into immediate execution. There was a firm basis of understanding between the personnels, and when war broke out the French Navy at once took over control of certain patrol zones, where it is constantly at sea, hunting German submarines, protecting Allied sea-borne commerce, and sweeping German trade off the seas. Both fleets wero being ■ expanded meanwhile upon a war .footing. Numbers of vessels with normally peaceful careers were taken over and fitted, out as reinforcements for the fleet. Notable among these were a number of large and exceptionally seaworthy trawlers, which are now playing an important part with tho patrolling forces. With the expansion, the French Navy, increased its co-operation. The French patrol zones w r ere widened and they have now been largely merged into the British zones so that French and British patrols are working} in closely dovetailed schemes. Some convoys are operated entirely by tho French Navy. Others are Tinder its protection during part of the voyage. Others, again, have escorts provided by both French and British Fleets.

The French Navy is also playing a notable part in circumscribing the activities of German surface raiders. That the two German pocket battleships now at large have done so little damage to the seaborne trade of the Allies must be ascribed to their reluctance to risk being brought to action by the Allied naval units.

Co-operation between the two navies is constantly under review. It is likely that the French Navy’s contribution to the Allied war effort will increase, not in order to reduce the burden on the British Navy, but to assume even more effective Allied command of the seas and reply to the German war upon merchant vessels.—British Official Wireless.