Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1942 CONVOING: RISK AND GAINS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 87, 14 April 1942, Page 4

Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1942 CONVOING: RISK AND GAINS

There is a vital distinction between the operations of a cruiser or destroyer that is a part of a naval seagoing force, and the operations of a cruiser more or less tied to a convoy as a convoy escort. When convoying of merchant ships was introduced in 1917—more than two years after the war had begun in August, 1914 —the change was made only after the opposition of high naval authorities, who objected to an escort system that robbed them of free control of their priceless warships. The present Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, has recorded in his history that the proposal to escort merchant ships "encountered opposition from almost every quarter." He writes:

Every squadron and every naval base was clamant for destroyers, and convoy meant taking from them even those that they had.

As late as January, 1917, official Admiralty opinion was definitely in opposition to convoying, and was expressed as follows:

A system of several ships sailing in company as a convoy is not recommended in any area where submarine attack is a possibility.

But within three months the Director of the Anti-submarine Division had triumphed over the official Admiralty view. "The first convoy left Gibraltar on May 10, 1917," and the system so reduced shipping losses that it came to stay.

Nevertheless, the Navy in 1917 felt severely the tying of its warships to convoy 'duty. An escorting cruiser or destroyer insures the escorted merchantmen against an inferior enemy, but perishes in the presence of a superior enemy. In 1914-18 any Japanese fleet in the Indian Ocean was a friendly fleet; today a Japanese fleet in the Indian Ocean, with attendant aircraft, simply eats up any lone cruisers whose convoying duty brings them within reach of the Japanese enemy. The air factor has further complicated the position; and the convoying system knows of no method of protecting the merchant ships and of also protecting their escorts against superior naval-air force. Concerning the recent sinking of the cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall under air attack off Ceylon, Mr. Churchill, veteran of two wars, now makes this clarifying statement:

It is quite impossible to afford continuous air protection to all British ships at sea. Many scores are at sea every day without such protection, and unless these risks are taken there is no means of carrying on the immense business of convoy and sea war which falls upon the Royal Navy.

In other words, escorting warships, and their convoys also, face perils in the Indian Ocean today that did not exist in 1914-18, even in the North Sea; and one of these perils is a Japanese fleet which claims naval superiority in the Indian Ocean, and which certainly is free to attack convoys and inferior naval forces in that region. This Japanese fleet is now cruising in the Indian Ocean with an impunity—and with an apparent immunity—which the German High Sea Fleet in 1914-18 never dared to claim.

Nothing is more clear than that a convoying navy, to the extent that it diffuses its strength on the escorting of merchant ships, reduces its capacity to concentrate in strength for a fleet action which the enemy ,may seek. This drawback matters less when the enemy is diffident [about seeking a fleet action—as was :he case of the German High Sea Fleet in 1914-18—and it matters more when an enemy fleet is cruising over convoy routes inviting battle, as is the case in the Indian Ocean today. In 1914 the British, Japanese, and French navies were strong enough to chase yon Spec's German cruiser squadron out of the Pacific to its doom in the South Atlantic; and meanwhile the Anzacs crossed the Indian Ocean, one of their escorts sinking the raider Emden en route. But now Japan assumes the naval supremacy which undoubtedly belonged to the Allies in the Indian and Pacific Oceans in the last war; and a very vital question is how the convoying system in the Indian Ocean today will react to this double call both for escorts for merchant ships and for an Allied battle fleet. Who would envy the Admiralty its task? Demands of merchant shipping and of battle squadrons—demands of the convoying routes to Russia, those to the Middle East, those to India, those to Australia and New Zealand—all these demands on naval and shipping strength must be viewed in proportion. Though crisis develop in the Indian Ocean, is that any reason for a slackening in the naval and mercantile effort to keep Russia supplied? Is it not a fact that Russia still provides the war-front where a decision is nearest —where the overthrow of Germany, and indirectly of Japan, may even be accelerated? If a demand should arise for British naval diversions to relieve territories in the South Pacific threatened by Japan, would not such a demand be just what the Japanese and the Gerjmans hope for? Would it lend to j shorten, or to lengthen, the war? I Viewed in proportion, the British

Navy's work of facing enemy fleets, and yet securing the sea-carriage of vital supplies to all Allies, has been carried out not so badly. Now that Japan's bid for Indian Ocean sea and air supremacy has arisen, it must be faced; but, even at the worst estimate, it is doubtful whether Japan can make a similar bid, at the same time, in South Pacific waters. The bad news from Ceylon may be committing Japan to a westward course of action whi.ch will decide definitely the direction and drive of her war effort. Mr. Churchill's expression of confidence in Sir James Somerville (transferred from the Western Mediterranean command) implies that Japan's strategy was foreseen and is provided for. This is not a war to be decided by minor actions. To jo himself has said "the real war is still to come."