ON THE SEAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 August 1942, Page 4

ON THE SEAS

ALLIED LOSSES DECREASING

RUGBY, August 12

Losses suffered by the Norwegian Mercantile Marine in July were less than half those suffered in the best of the six previous months, the Minister of Shipping (Major Arne Lund), who has just returned from America, St He%aid that provisional estimates of shipping losses for the past month, made by United States authorities, showed there had been a considerable reduction. The American authorities believed they had gone a long way to combating the U-boat menace on the east coast. ATLANTIC SINKINGS NEW YORK, August 13. ' According to the records of the Associated Press of America, the sinkings of ships in the Western Atlantic since December 7 last have reached a total of 420 vessels. The Navy announced that a small Dutch merchantman was torpedoed off South America with the loss ol 23 lives. The “New York Times’s” Rio de Janeiro correspondent says: A German sea raider is being pursued by an Allied cruiser, after an attack on a merchantman off Brazil. The raider is believed to be a fast oil-burner, which sank an Allied ship on Sunday. INDIAN NAVY RUGBY, August 12. The Royal Indian Navy, in conjunction with the Royal Navy, is developing a new anti-submarine school in India, which will be the largest in the ' British Commonwealth outside Britain. The officer in charge will be lent from the Royal Navy and the staff will consist of officers from both the Royal Navy and the Indian Navy. Officers and men for training will be drawn from all the navies of the United Nations.

Plans are being prepared by the Royal Indian Navy for a new torpedo school which, in addition to providing for torpedo instruction, will incorporate facilities for handling depthcharges, minelaying, and the disposal and maintaining of ships’ electrical equipment. These three branches have been carried on hitherto in separate establishments, but the centralisation aims at producing a steady flow of highly qualified specialists, the best of whom will be eligible for warrant and commissioned rank.