BRITISH SHIPPING LOSSES

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22883, 2 December 1939, Page 13

BRITISH SHIPPING LOSSES

COLLIER SUNK IN NORTH SEA GAINS BY CAPTURE AND NEW TONNAGE * (BRITISH OmCUL WTSELEfIIS.) (Received December 1, 7.30 pm.) - v RUGBY, November 30. According to Agency messages the British collier Sheaf Crest was sunk by a mine in the North Sea this morning. Fifteen . were seriously injured. The survivors were picked up by a warship, which i taking them to an east coast port, and 15 others have been landed by lifeboat. After missing with torpedoes a German U-boat shelled the British steamer Uskmouth for two hours and a half until she burst into flames and sank off the Spanish coast bn Saturday night. Twenty-two of the crew of 25 got away in'a lifeboat. After sailing for 25 hours they were picked up by an Italian motor-vessel and landed at a south-east coast port to-day. A message from Amsterdam says that the Beverwijk (2948 tons) wirelessed an SOS. from the Baltic,: It is feared that she has been mined. Authoritative quarters in London . give figures for British : merchant shipping losses in the months of Sep-, tember and October as 133,000 and 82.000 tons gross respectively, and . 17.000 tons gross for the first 19 days of November, making a total gross ' tonnage loss of 252,000 since the war began. . .. In the same period 128,000 tons .became available through new . vessels . being put into service, and a. further 70,000 tons through captures, leaving a net loss of. 54,000 ‘ tons gross. British ships entering. British ports, expressed in tons, were:— September, 4,509,000; . October, ' 4,384,000; first 20 days of November* ;: 3,214,000. The French evening communique states: “One of. our torpedo-boats successfully attacked an enemy marine.” , ' . --i DARING RAID ON GERMAN BASE EXTENT OF DAMAGE AT BORKUM ; : DEFENDERS TAKEN BY 1 SURPRISE I l (lamsß omciu «nxuu.) k - - v . RUGBY, November -30, . The raid on Tuesday on, the Ge- • I man base at Borkum Island- by; the i Royal Air Force is declared by re-*. ; ports to -have been one of the most t \ audacious raids in the history o£„ '■ war flying; The German’ communk i que, which ungrudgingly described--1 the raid as a daring exploit, admits: that it caught the base unawares.- : The full story of the. raid, now be--1 ing. pieced together, does not bear; out the German claim that no dam- : age was done. . " ’■ On the contrary, the results of th* - “strafing” were:—Five German seaplanes machine-gunned, two of them - believed to be seriously damaged;, three out of four machine-gun posts; on the Borkum mole probably put’ out of action; German coastal patrol boats riddled; with. buffets; valuable;information of the enemy’s fortifications collected. Later the fighter patrol which car- • ried out .the raid landed safely...ill; darkness on -its home, aerodrome. They returned as they .went, a complete squadron of 12 twin-engined-fighters, piloted by six Royal Air Force regulars and' six members of. the Auxiliary Air .Force. Not one of the pilots or any other; members . of the .crews had been under gunfire before. They covered 500 miles in carrying out a high!# successful attack on a fortified . sea- - plane base and. In. spite of- intense anti-aircraft fire, no member of-the crews—36 men—sustained a scratch; and not a single aircraft bore any trace of‘the gunfire to which it .had' been subjected. > The patrol was sent out to recon--noitre the German base and attack the seaplanes in the air or'at-their: base. It emerged from cloud after flying through a rainstorm at ‘a, short distance from its targets.' Before the main attack the pilot* spotted five seaplanes on the slipways, together with coastal patrol boats. The patrol was flying.in four sections of three aircraft each, and; they immediately dived for their*, various objectives, spraying machine-gun bullets from’ height* of sometimes well below 100 feet2 One of the fighters skimmed through, a gap in the mole. The Germans were taken completely by surprise. Thefightercrews could see men running in. all* directions, while some gunnel*' occupying a post on top of a hangars fell to the ground. For a whilesthere was pandemonium. Then anti-; aircraft guns and the coastal patrol; boats got into action, but the stan-* dard of firing was not very high. wUndisturbed by the. enemy’s pompoms and machine-guns,"the Britishf fighters pressed home their low fly* ing attacks. As one member pfthar 7 crew said afterwards: “The Ger-. mans probably never thought they would have to hit anything so low* in the air.” Their task over, the fighters re-, formed and flew back to England^ I 200 miles of .the journey being covered in darkness. They were,, not intercepted by Germsm aircraft during any period of the. flight. ' : • r ' :Zt

GERMAN SEAPLANE t SHOT DOWN V

_____ ■■ r (Bamsb oihcul wiwtMaJ : -• RUGBY, November 30. The Air Ministry “While on patrol over the Nortk'Seap yesterday two British aircraft overc took and shot down a German. Dornier seaplane. The crew of the Dornier were picked up by a Nor-' ’ wegian ship.” v ‘