Fast Motor Torpedo Boats Hold Nazi Hopes

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 153, 29 June 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

Fast Motor Torpedo Boats Hold Nazi Hopes

JUST as on land the Nazis J depend; on the, striking force of their mechanised units and their Air Force: to bring confusion 1 to the opposing armies, so when the time comes for an invasion of England they have weapons of a similar; nature. While their bombers, sweeping in waves over any concentra- , tion "J: of ships of .. the . British Navy or Mercantile . Marine rain bombs from the sky, they picture simultaneously >'. "an attack'' with; a huge fleet of glorified motor boats—-fifty-foot power ■ torpedo boats armed primarily with from two to four torpedo tubes-and with, small -\ cannon, ' and depth charges. It will be '■'_ their' threatened sea "blitzkrieg." ' - ; By these means they. hope to bloekadi the British Isles, starve Britain int< submission and whittle down the Britisl Navy, while in the Mediterranean Italj —an exponent of the same weapon— u'ses similar methods in an attack 01 Egypt, Suez and Arabia. On paper, ant theoretically, -{it all sounds reasonabli and practical, and certainly In the mindi of the German High Naval Commanc it is an idea which has -been Ion; fostered and dreamed about. Whatevei Germany gains in-, naval • strength'j.froii the submission of France (the disposi tion of the French Navy r is unknowi at the time of writing) it is likely thai she will still rely , largely-upon this scheme -. of ; her naval j strategians..;.:'.. Through it the Nazis -believe they hav< the answer to the successful bloekadinj of the British Isles and the disruptior of merchant shipping and the plying ol convoys (states a Canadian writer). T.c counteract .the . invincibility ' of Johr Bull's Navy and his slow-moving capital ships, Hitler is planning, "■ and may have done .so|:by '■ the time this appears ;ir print, to unloose a veritable hive 'oi hornets to supplement his' aerial attack These • hornets - will' take the; shape <■ oi flivver ( U-boats ': and fast ■ power "boats, all small, speedy and. mobile, .which

.-. '.ieliver a swift, devastating attack and then • rush : home ■ before the smoke of : battle has cleared away. . At least that is the way they hope it will work. Believing: that it is superior in the air because of a definite advantage in the number of 'planes at its command, ■ Germany will,' according to the war correspondents, execute an almost continuous series of air raids on British i shipping and; naval and military bases -.; in :-which : wave after wave of pursuit .-.' and bombing 'planes will strafe and , pour such destruction on merchant ship- . ping and convoys that it, will be impossible to keep the lanes of commerce,-so vital to the . Motherland, open, and in .-. the midst of the ensuing confusion these small U-boats and power boats-will dart :'■ in arid out at top speed and complete ' the job by using their small cannon and torpedoes as the. disorganised -enemy attempts to escape from the air attack. le ' . ~ v '.'.. '-..-. •■ '■■-,■: to Mass Produced Craft . . * ' To this end the Nazi command has put '? into mass production a tiny submarine — and, a fifty-foot power boat, conceived >n and designed especially for this purpose. , The "flivver subs." are less than one- • • fifth the' size, of the latest types, now le being used by most of the .world's other Is navies. Apparently Germany has decided id that it is impossible to compete on equal ]( r terms with the British •'Navy ' on : , or ? beneath the sea with its.pocket. battlem ships and standard' U-boats, : and'' so Siemens and other great, industrial r n plants have been. pressed: into service to it manufacture the parts of these snaall is subs. ... '.'•''?■;"."'.-..- ''•'-:> v.'.-'-. "v.."-. '.'-'-'■•'-■ Production has been speeded up and re standardised, precisely as cars are fabrijo- cated in American assembly plants, i until ,n now about a hundred.a month .are being ,f turned out. . In' some, cases these . subs. ' 0 are assembled inland and dispatched m freight car. .the coast, but in most jl cases the parts are shipped; to dozens of • e small boatyards in Baltic arid North Sea in ports— like' v Sas'snitz.-.Warne-,f munde, Rugeri, -Kiel—and.; there bolted [j. together and' motored. « •. ■.-. -~... -. jf Flimsy and over-simplified, they will s, have a limited range, but enough to take :n tiiem around the- British Isles, so that.

1 they are considered adequate for the; E job in hand. In theory,, they can remain j toil station and be reruelled andreprovisioncd from' larger U-boats acting as ' ; mother ships, or from seaplanes. With i 300. of these supposed .to be ready to form an adventurous circle around - Britain when'the blockade is commenced, . the web of destruction is to be comi pleted by innumerable speed • boats, - or 3 "pocket torpedo boats." iForthe"KM" •' Sleek, low, armed with a small cannon * and two to four torpedo tubes as well ' 3 as machine-guns and depth charges, they J are expected to provide effective reconl haiss'ance on England's shipping' operations and, when the opportunity presents 5 itself, to dash in for the "kill." Trusting , to the'.almost 1 ever-present hazy visibility'in the seas surrounding. the British ' Isles, their lowness in the water, which will permit them to get quite close to their prey before being spotted, and the I fact that when zigzagging' at top speed ] of about 50 miles an hour, they, will be ( 1 almost impossible to catch or hit, they | ~ are expected to play havoc among the ( . merchantmen. ( ( ? "Slightly over 50 feet in length, these ( r frail craft, unarmoured and with hulls j 1 of white mahogany or • its •■ seaworthy ( 1 equal/have engines of about 1200 horse f r power,and are expected Ho do about 40 j -knots even in seas in which a destroyer l 3 would:-: think ' twice . about , driving its ( 1 engines', "all out." : Crews, : numbering ' from four to eight husky and definitely 1 tough .young men, will man them. They' ■ will : have to be : almost supermen to ' 1 stand -the buffeting they and their craft ' - will .receive, for the British, who have ' 1 quite ' a few of these boats, too, have f ' found -that. .48- hours without - sleep, an > '. impossibility because .of the lack: of l r space for berths and the gyrations of the a t boat,', is' as long a spell at sea, aboard f i one of them, as a human being : can i stand. ■■- - .*'. ' s ■ As auxiliaries to the air "fleet and the v ' flivver subs, these boats-are the weapons t oh which Germany depends to' pull off v I the whole blockade ' and;-to. make '■.the " ■high -seas-'of the' North "AtlaWtic and', the ii ; waters around-'the British- Isles'.too . j>ois'-J v

onous for merchantmen this spring. The Nazis have issued a blood-curdling hint that they are prepared to send out from Bfemerhavcrt shoals, schools and multitudes of them. Some naval men openly scoff at the idea. They point out that Britain has hr.d similar craft for some time and i «.— -—: —

that it still pins its faith to large, slow battleships; that John Bull sniffs derisively when it is intimated that II Duce boasted that his fleet of power boats > made the British think twice about making Italy be good in the Mediterranean i when it attempted its "Mare Nostrum" ■ programme; that possibly the Fuehrer has-been over-enthusiastic as to II Duce's \ claims for them; and that Holland, [ Sweden,' Portugal,-Egypt and Finland • ;—. :—. __<£