U-BOAT MENACE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1942, Page 6

U-BOAT MENACE

ALLIES MUST KILL IT

NEW YORK, March 20. The urgent requirement to-day ol the Allies is to defeat the Axis submarines, writes Rear-Admiral Yates Stirling, former head of the United States Navy. The importance ol this is evident in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Far East,. where the destruction of anti-Axis shipping has been concentrated in a drive to isolate American production from the battle-fronts of Europe, the Near East and the Pacific. Submarines of the Axis Powers are operating in almost all seas, and their number has been increasing in spite of the losses inflicted. This situation now must be faced as the No. 1 Menace, and an all-out effort by Britain and America has become essential if Britain is not to be cut off from American war supplies, and if the United States is not to be placed in the position where its great industrial resources will be of little value to the anti-Axis forces throughout the world. The British have been obliged to spread out thinly their Navy and Air Forces to hold the enemy on many fronts, while the United States Navy has been absorbed almost to its limit in aiding the Allies in the Atlantic and guardin,g itself in the Pacific. There are several warships on the building ways in America. Among these are battleships, aircraft-carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines. One of the vital questions to be decided is which of these types is most urgently needed. America is laying down merchant shipping in all available yards. A,total of 8,000,090 tons a year has been promised. This will mean three ships a day, but even this large tonnage cannot suffice to meet the Allies' needs unless the ravages of the Axis submarines can be curtailed.

Aeroplane production is well advanced in both Britain and America. The total of 45.000 planes in 1943 that President Roosevelt has planned is probably sufficient to give the Allied nations air supremacy wherever these planes can be sent.

The fighting plane is the main problem. for this type, due to its limited flying range, must be transported over long distances by merchant ships, vulnerable to submarine attacks. The cargo shipbuilding programme should therefore be converted where possible to the production of cargo aircraft-carriers. Our merchant ships would thus be able not only to transport fighter planes across the oceans, but could use them as a means of protection on the way. At this critical stage in the fight for mastery of' the seas, Britain and the United States must stop, look and listen. They will then see that their shipbuilding programme must be rearranged to fit the emergency . that now confronts them.

Destroyers and aircraft-carrying ships must come first. And there is no time to be lost in building them.