STRICTER SECRECY

Evening Star, Volume 24914, Issue 24914, 12 July 1943, Page 4

STRICTER SECRECY

ALLIES'METHODS AGAINST U-BOATS LONDON, July 10. The United States and (British Governments are concerned at the number of statements which public persons and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are making about the methods employed against the U-boats, and the devices employed, says • a Downing street statement. The enemy, by piecing together these statements, may glean more information than is desirable. A statement approved by President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill will, therefore, be issued on the tenth of every month. This will be the only statement made on behalf of the two Governments, apart from specially authorised announcements and statements or censored accounts of particular incidents and actions. All departments have been so instructed. It is hoped that the Press, as far as possible, will co-operate in keeping technical discussions of the U-boat warfare -within the limits of official announcements so as to leave the enemy in his present state of doubt and anxiety upon this most important aspect of our successful warfare at sea.

Summing up the June results of the anti-submarine operations, the statement continued:—

(1) The losses of Allied and neutral ships from submarine attack were the lowest since the United States entered the war. The loss from all forms of enemy action was the lowest recorded since the outbreak of war between Britain and Germany.

(2) The targets offered to anti-sub-marine vessels and aircraft of the United Nations were not as numerous in June as previously, but the sinkings of Axis submarines w r ere substantial and satisfactory. (3) The heavy toll taken of U-boats during May showed its effect in June, when the main transatlantic convoys were practically unmolested. U-boat attacks on our shipping occurred in widely-separated areas. Every opportunity, however, "was taken to attack U-boats leaving and returning to their bases on the west coast of France.

(4) The merchant shipping tonnage of the United Nations has shown a large increase in every month of 1943, and anti-submarine vessels and aircraft are coming into service in considerable numbers.