ATTACKS ON CONVOYS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1939, Page 9

ATTACKS ON CONVOYS

AIRCRAFT OF DUBIOUS VALUE Now that warfare concerns nations as whole rather than the combatant forces as such, movements of general pressure are usually of more importance than spectacular incidents (writes the military correspondent of the ‘Sydney Morning Herald”). Each side is concerned with finding the weak spots in its adversary's armour rather than with pitting equal fighting forces against each other.

Checkmated on the Continent and blockaded by sea, Germany’s obvious cue was to try to ascertain whether she could cut off Britain’s supplies in some way or other. Submarines provided one answer, but a somewhat limited one, to this problem. Now, Germany is endeavouring to see if Britain's convoy system is as effective as it was in the last war. After 1917 the convoy proved the reply to the submarine; but during the past few years experts have argued that the changed conditions, and in particular the menace of air attack, might detract from its efficacy in the event of another war. Even those who admitted that battleships might be able to hold their own against attack from the air were sometimes disposed to argue that a large aggregation of merchant vessels, convoyed by lines of destroyers and small surface craft, might positively invite attack . from bombing aeroplanes.

The difficulty in bombing is always to find a target sufficiently large to hit. This is usually surmounted by dive-bombing or by low flying; but it is obvious that a large number of merchant vessels moving in formation present a large target, just as large a target, indeed, as if a whole fleet of warships go to sea. Only experience could demonstrate if the improvements in aerial defence could counteract this new threat. As in so many other fields, the Germans have been testing the position by using only small numbers of bombers. Just a week ago the first revealed attack on a convoy of merchantmen took place. Germany sent out 12 bombers

against a convoy in’the North Sea. That is, the merchant vessels were in a position that favoured the attacker. Long flights from the enemy bases were not necessary, for, after all, the North Sea is only 400 miles wide. But this worked both ways, and it is interesting to note that the attendant destroyers immediately called out British fighters from their home bases. Of the 12 German bombers four were brought down, at least three in a fight in the. air, and no damage whatever was done either to the convoy or to its protectors by sea and air. This result is both gratifying and suggestive. It is clear, of course, that aerial attacks on convoys arc limited to the radius which bombers can cover before returning to their bases, whether those bases arc on land or sea. It. is equally clear that bombers operating from sea bases must experience difficulty, especially during the oncoming winter months, in finding theii bases again. There would thus seem to be rigid geographical limits within which convoys can be bombed; but this, in turn, implies that, usually, counter-attacks by our own Allied'fighting machines would be possible. We have already been officially informed that all outgoing and incoming convoys are escorted for some hundreds of miles from the British coast by R.A.F. patrols. Unless the enemy thus wish to invoke a fight in the air, the area within which they can attack convoyed merchantmen is still further restricted.

The only limitation to these optimistic conclusions would be if German bombers were suffiicently speedy .to drop their bombs effectively on the convoyed merchant vessels, and then speed off before they could be attacked. But the first fight did not result in any such damage, apparently because the anti-aircraft guns of the. destroyers kept the German machines too high in the air. Thus we have a series of factors which mutually cancel each other and which, as i!ar as we know at present, leave the convoy system most of its pristine advantages. The task of protection is naturally more difficult, because provision has to be made for fending off air attack as well as for keeping submarines

away. The escort now has to fulfill a dual purpose. But we have already been told that no convoyed vessel has yet succumbed to submarines in this war, and, from whichever angle we look at it, the results of the first air raid on a convoy of vessels are eminently satisfactory, from our point of view.

Once against Britain has exacted a toll of one-third of the German attackers. During one week, counting all kinds of air attacks, 13 ou( of 44 German machines have been lost. The next point on which practical experience will doubtless be sought is whether a much larger attack will entail a correspondingly high average of casualties. If it does, the whole problem of air attack will have to be reconsidered in light of this extremely high rate of wastage.