AMERICA AND THE U-BOATS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 140, 16 June 1941, Page 6

AMERICA AND THE U-BOATS

AMERICA was taken by surprise by the sinking of the Robin Moor by a German submarine. The Administration did not anticipate that the Nazis would start the shooting. But they have, and they have followed up their piratical act by the truculent declaration that they will sink any ship conveying munitions to British ports. Mr. Sumner Welles, Under-Secretary of State, declares that America will not be impressed by bluster of this type, but he adds that the facts are beyond dispute, that an American ship was sunk by a submarine in defiance of the rules of international law. He has protested to Berlin, and has asked for assurances. He will get these, probably, but they will be ■without value, and as soon as it suits Hitler to do so he will send the next boat he can reach to join the Robin Moor. Just how long they will put up with that treatment depends on the Americans themselves, but even Germany will not have forgotten that it was precisely that sort of treatment which brought America into the last war. The patrol work of the American Fleet has been of immense advantage to the British war effort, in giving information of the operations of enemy raiders in the western Atlantic, but that help will be made immeasurably more effective if, in addition to arming merchantmen, it is decided to protect them all the way across the Atlantic. Britain has not sufficient ships for this task, but if America took over, one zone the protection of the other would be very much simplified. Already 55 per cent of American opinion, according to the latest Gallup poll, favours the use of the navy, and since the Robin Moor went down there has been a great upswing in support of this action. It took America two years to enter the last war after the pirate campaign began, but all through this war opinion has been gradually hardening, and it will not take many such incidents to impel President Roosevelt to issue the order for convoys.