U-BOAT LOSSES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 68, 13 December 1939, Page 10

U-BOAT LOSSES

Five Destroyed Last Week BRITISH AND NEUTRAL SHIPS SUNK By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. LONDON, December 11. According to an authorized statement, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force destroyed hve enemy submarines last week. It is officially stated that during the week ended December 9 seven British ships o£ a tonnage of 33,518 tons, and eight neutral ships of a tonnage of 26,612 tons were lost. The following British ships are overdue and must now be considered lost:—Ashlea (4222 tons), Newton Beech (4651 tons), Huntsman (8196 tons), and Trevanion (5299 tons). The wireless operator was playing cards when the British steamer Willowpool (4815 tons) was mined in the North Sea. lie managed to send out ;ni S.O.S. before, his apparatus was disabled. The whole crew reached a lightship and landed at an East Coast port. Several were slightly injured. The Trevanion carried a cargo from Port Pirie to Swansea. She left Cape Town on October 17. Nothing lias been heard of her since. The Admiralty knows nothing of a German claim that two British tankers were sunk in the English Channel at the weekend.

The British and neutral shipping losses last week were the third highest weekly total since the outbreak of the war. stated a Daventry broadcast last night, but the tonnage lost by Britain was almost balanced by captures and new launchings. Britain still bas 21.000,000 tons of merchant shipping afloat—By radio. EMPIRE’S DEFENCE Strategic Importance Of India TWO VITAL FRONTIERS The strategic importance of India in the defence system of the British Commonwealth of Nations was described by 'Mr. 11. V. Hodson in “The Empire at War” series of talks broadcast by Daventry. India had two vital fronts, the penetration of either of which would have serious consequences to the Empire, said Mr. Hodson. In the north lay her land frontier of 3000 miles, part of which was protected by mountains, and also in part of which were tribes being spurred on to aggression by Nazi propaganda. To the rest of India the defence of this front gave security, a _ security which was guaranteed by British and Indian troops. But security was also necessary on another front —the Indian Ocean. India had only a small naval unit, but thousands qf her subjects served in the merchant ships, and, as in the last war, they were rendering signal service to the Empire in collaborating with the British naval forces to keep the trade routes open. Aerial Life Line. In addition, India had many fortified harbours in the Indian Ocean. But there was an even greater front to be protected, and one in which the whole Empire was concerned. She was part of the aerial life-line of the Empire. The defence of this was au essential part in the war effort of the whole com munity. There was scarcely a country iu the world to which the rule of the,defence of distance applied more than India, said Mr. Hodson. The lives of the people in that region depended on British power. If the Held of war extended to her, those miles of coast line would be threatened. Nothing was more vital, therefore, to India, andindeed to the whole Emoire, than that the doors to the Indian Ocean should be locked against their common enemies. To the east and west also were points of strategic importance—Singapore,, Suez, and the Persian Guif. where Indian troops, well accustomed to the rigours of the tropics, were serving alongside British troops. No one could predict how the war would proceed, said Mr. Hodson, but if Russian aggression were let loose, India’s part would be a vital one Come what might, he said, India would stand firm on the side of the Allies, first because of her hatred of Hitlerism, and secondly because of her military geography, which had carried her destiny through a hundred wars. —By radio.