PERIL OF THE U-BOAT MENACE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13063, 4 February 1943, Page 7

PERIL OF THE U-BOAT MENACE

EARLY LORDS DEBATE Doenitz Promotion Causes Stir In Britain London, Feb. 1. The peril of the U-boat menace, which has been in the limelight in recent weeks, will be raised in the House of Lords by Lord Hankey this week.

The Leader of the House. Lord Cranbourne, is expected to move for a secret session, but there is a general hope that the question will be publicly discussed.

Attention has again been focused on this grave problem by the appointment of Admiral Doenitz as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy in succession to Admiral Raeder. The appointment of the former chief of the U-boat fleet is interpreted as an indication that U-boat warfare will be still further intensified.

"Brilliant and dangerous" is the description given to Admiral Doenitz, who, in the last war, before serving under the German ace Forstmann, commanded one out of the three

U-boats which played liavoc with Allied shipping in the Mediterranean in 1917. He was eventually taken, prisoner, but feigned insanity so well that he deceived British doctors and wa sone of the first prisoners repatriated in 1918. Contempt lor British Methods. Doenitz thereafter set himself to re-establish the German U-boat fleet, and now, in U-boat pens on the French Atlantic Coast, he has hi& headquarters, in which wireless messages filter through advising him of the latest Allied shipping movements. He is known to have the greatest scorn for British methods of combating U-boats. Doenitz told • the newspaper Svenska-Gdladet recently that the British convoy system was useless and out-of-date, and that British methods lacked originality ,as the. British were afraid to try out new ideas. ■ It was.Doenitz who originated the wolf pack group tactics. He is credited with destroying 15,000,000 tons of Allied shipping. Last War Comparisons Comparisons are drawn with the replacement of Admiral Tirpitz by Admiral Scheer in the last war when Germany was then, as now, fighting not so much for victory as to exhaust her opponents. Then younger men were withdran from big surface ships and sent to man U-boats. ' It is thought that Doenitz may be doing this or that he may be planing to send big ships to sea to cooperate with U-boats. It is known that based in Norway are the warships Tirpitz and Schamhorst, Admiral Scheer, Lutzow, Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen, also three sixinch cruisers and 20 destroyers. It is speculated that Doenitz may try more blockade runners and may tighten the protection of the German coastal convoys. He may make spectacular hit-and-runs by hitherto idle warships. It is known that he is not a believer of the fleet being in hiding in Norwegian fiords.