NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 35, 10 February 1940, Page 12

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

» THE CONFLICT AT SEA

FATE OF SUBMARINES

OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Some idea of the progress of the war at sea is gained from an official statement on the subject of German submarine losses. ' Earlier it was announced that the rate of destruction of Üboats averaged between two and four a week when U-boat activity was on the scale of the first two months of the war. This is now said to be an under-state-ment The British Admiralty does not admit the sinking of a U-boat to be proved unless definite evidence, in the shape of prisoners, bodies, or wreckage, is obtained. Prisoners and Losses. Some idea of the manner in which the Germans have suffered is provided by the fact that in the first week of December there were 144 Germans from U-boat crews in prison.in Britain. At the end of 1916 there were 180 U-boat men .in prison camps. The number of U-boats known to have been destroyed up to that date was 46. If the same ratio of survival rules in this war, the Nazis must have lost 35; U-boats by the beginning of December. This, of course, is without reference to any successes gained by the French, who have sunk at least six' submarines. The mine campaign which began in the middle of November is now shown to have inflicted most loss on neutral shipping. Measures to meet the situation .were taken so quickly that the same volume of shipping was soon passing in and out of London's river, 99 per cent, of it in safety. A similar situation existed at other east coast ports where mines were laid. Specialised Ships. ' The reference to German raiding plaries having been under fire of a British anti-aircraft cruiser may have provjded a momentary puzzle for the reader, for not everyone is familiar with naval "programmes. The British Navy, now possesses at least four of these' ships. ' The 4290-ton Coventry provides an index to the type of vessel. She mounts 10 4iri anti-aircraft guns and two multiple machine-guns, in . addition to other weapons. Her speed is 29 knots, and her silhouette shows her as a low, twofunnelled, dangerous-looking craft, ■with destroyer-like lines. Four ships of this type are in service ai>l two others, at least, are being refitteti for the same work. The Curlew is a sister ship to the Coventry, and. the Cairo is also commissioned. These ships were all built at the end of the World War, and are now playing their part in a new role. A.Barrage on. Water. Britain's ballbon barrage is now putting to sea. The balloons are a familiar sight around the areas which Britain most wishes to defend, but today it is possible to see them tugging and swaying high above barges, in the Thames between the sandy banks which the famous river has built up at its outlet to the sea. This new development began when the .Germans started dropping mines in the. Tham;. estuary by night-flying aeroplanes, but it is only one precaution which the British have taken since the Nazis succeeded in delaying Thames traffic for several hours while the voters were swept. While London remains the chief port through which- the world reaches Britain the task of keeping the Thames clear must be of the first importance. Consequently minesweepers and other naval craft are always on duty there. Whether the balloon barrage will prove effective is not yet known, but the authorities point hopefully to the fact that no mines have been dropped in the estuary since the barrage was created above it.The mobility of the barrage makes such defensive work cs this quite easy. As the balloons are anchored to lorries so that they may be moved from place to place, all that has been necessary was to drive the lorries to the port, swing lorries on board lighters, and ancho. these at selected spots. That, however, is not the end of the story for the barrage crews. Thames lighters are not built to accommodate passengers and so the men have been living as best they can in the corners of partitioned holds. Nazi Frightfulness. Mr. Chamberlain's reference to Nazi attacks on lightships and the consistent bombing and machine-gunning of fishing vessels by German planes reminds one that these tactics are not new. In the World War the Germans sank no fewer than 578 fishing boats, a class of ship which, under The Hague' Convention, should have been exempt from these murderous assaults. One ship in every five sunk was a fishing boat, and about 400 of these were destroyed by submarines. The fishermen of today may draw hope from the fact that while the fishing fleets were heavy sufferers in the early stages of the war, when they provided more than half the losses in total ships sunk, towards the end only one vessel in seven destroyed came from the fishing ports. Moreover, it was the fall in the sinkings of small ships which gave the first clue to the defeat of the submarine campaign. The unrestricted submarine warfare of the World War, it is almost forgotten today, was not undertaken merely with the idea that British commerce could be paralysed by it, but with the notion of terrorising seamen into refusing to sail. That aim was defeated; the Germans simply did not understand the nature of the seamen. When Admiral Jellicoe visited the Crystal Palace in 1918 he found a number of merchant seamen at gun drill there. Most of them had served on torpedoed ships. One steward had suffered four times, and he was learning to shoot so that he might sink a submarine with his own hands.

It was this spirit of the men of the merchant navy that helped, as much as anything, to defeat the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm 11, and it is obviously not absent today.