DEFEAT U-BOAT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 80, 5 April 1943, Page 3

DEFEAT U-BOAT

EVERY EFFORT NEEDED Rec. 1.30 p.m. RUGBY, April 4. "The U-boat battle to-day is a fight of grave intensity, in which we cannot afford to overlook any means to outweigh or defeat the enemy," said Sir Stafford Cripps, Minister of Aircraft Production, speaking at Hull to-day. He added, "it will have its worst and its better periods. It will go on for many months, maybe years, but in the long run we shall slowly and certainly gain ascendancy and win. "The battle is no local matter. It stretches over the whole wide oceans. It is being fought in shipyards and factories as well as on the high seas. We are all in it. We must, none of us, spare any effort that may help to gain victory against the U-boat and the E-boat. All our technical and inventive skill is being thrown into the battle." NAVY'S STRIKING" POWER BRITISH IN MEDITERRANEAN LONDON, April 4. The Royal Navy's striking power in the Mediterranean has been reinforced both east and west of the Sicilian Channel to meet any attempt Rommel makes at a "Dunkirk," says the British United Press correspondent with the British fleet in the Mediterranean. It is impossible to disclose what reinforcements have arrived, but warships, guns and manpower which were not available during the El Alamein-Tripoli advance have been added to the forces, which are ready to strike if an evacuation is attempted. Some officers envision a naval pincer attack from both sides of the Sicilian Channel, combined with heavy aerial attacks and thrusts from speedy British and American motor torpedo-boats and submarines. The enemy possesses similar forces, but the distance to Europe favours the Allies. The Admiralty states that during operations off Tunisia an enemy aircraft was shot down by the trawler iH.M.S. Fluellen.