POWERFUL ENEMY FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 87, 14 April 1942, Page 5

POWERFUL ENEMY FLEET

IN BAY OF BENGAL

PRIME MINISTER'S REVELATIONS

LONDON, April 13. The Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, today gave the House of Commons information about the recent naval operations in the Bay of Bengal. He said that on April 4 superior Japanese naval forces were observed steering towards Ceylon. They included at least three battleships, among them one of the modernised 16-inch gun Nagato type, and five aircraftcarriers.

. There were also a number of heavy and light cruisers and some

destroyer flotillas,

Mr. Churchill said that in the severe Japanese air attacks on the harbours of Colombo and Trincomalee, in which the attacking aircraft suffered very heavy. losses, we suffered to a lesser extent, but that our aircraft losses were serious. Damage was done to shore establishments and to the few ships that remained in harbour.

The cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall and the aircraft-carrier Hermes had left before the attack. They were sunk by air attacks, and Mr. Churchill added: "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 ! are no means of carrying on the immense business of convoy and sea war which falls upon the Royal Navy." COSTLY ATTACK MADE. Mr. Churchill explained that full use was made of our torpedo aircraft, fighters, and bombers on the spot to attack the Japanese aircraft-carriers. He had no knowledge of whether any damage was done to the enemy, but he went on: "Practically all our aircraft taking part in the attack were knocked out or seriously damaged, or I became unserviceable."

Mr. Churchill said that the naval operations were under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville, an officer who for the past two years had been engaged in the western Mediterranean, and who had almost unrivalled experience of conditions of modern naval warfare. Nothing in the handling of Admiral Somerville's ships had weakened the Admiralty's confidence in him.

The 32,000-ton battleship Nagatp, mounting eight 16-inch guns, was completed in 1920. She was reconstructed in 1936. There are only two ships of this type, the other being the Mutsu, which was reconstructed in the same year.