SUBMARINES SIGHTED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 141, 27 March 1948, Page 5

SUBMARINES SIGHTED

OFF AMERICAN COAST German Tactics Recalled < N .Z.P. A —Copyright). WASHINGTON, March 25. Submarines not belonging to any nations west of the “Iron Curtain” have been sighted off American shores recently, the Secretary of the Navy, Mr John L. Sullivan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee to-day. Mr Sullivan, who asked the committee to approve the strengthening of the Navy, said that he was not prepared to evaluate the significance of these sightings, but recalled that “an early step of the Germans in 1917 and 1941 was to deploy submarines off our coast.” He told the committee that Russia possesses 250 submarines, including 10 new German craft. A high Navy official later told the newspapers that three foreign submarines had been sighted. The periscope of the first was sighted on January 30, near Johnston Island and Palmyra, 800 miles from Pearl Harbour The second was seen off the Aleu tians 10 days ago. A third was reported to be cruising 200 miles from San Francisco about a month ago, but this report was considered doubtful because it was night time. The Secretary of Air, Mr W. Stuart Symington, told the committee that Super-Fortress planes “can take off in limited operations from Alaska, or Labrador to bomb any part of Russia and return to American bases.”

Mr. Symington said that “by way of example” when discussing the need for strengthening the Air Force. He explained that, to bomb any part of Russia from Alaska or Labrador and return to American v bases, SuperFortresses Avould have to be refuelled in the air by an improved method which had been developed. “However, such limited attacks would 'not be decisive,” he said, therefore it is necessary to obtain bases nearer to the enemy.”

FOUR MORE REPORTED (Rec. 10.25 a.m.) NEW YORK, Mar. 26 A “World Telegram” report from Washington says that four more submarines—supposedly Russian-—were added to-day to the number of undersea craft already announced officially as having been sighted off American shores in the Pacific. The “World Telegram” report adds: “This would place the number of definitely sighted Submarines at seven. The new figures came from a reliable source, which also disclosed that foreign submarines •—presumably of the Red Fleet —have been operating near American bases in the Pacific for about a year.