ON THE SEAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 March 1943, Page 5

ON THE SEAS

BRITISH NAVAL LOSSES

RUGBY, March 4

Replying to a question in the Lords, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, Lord Bruntisfield, stated that British naval losses to the end of February were five capital ships, seven aircraft carriers, twenty-five cruisers, fourteen armed merchant cruisers, ninety-four destroyers, fourteen corvettes, forty-four submarines, one monitor, eight sloops, twenty-two minesweepers, one hundred and fiftysix trawlers, fourteen drifters, one minelayer, three yachts, five gunboats and three cutters. ' Lord Bruntisfield added it was a pity these figures would have to be published without the losses the Navy had been able to inflict on enemy vessels, which would put the figures in a very different light.

U-BOAT MENACE

WASHINGTON, March 3

Sir Arthur Salter, the head of the British Merchant Shipping Mission, told the press: The shipping situation is grave and anxious, because we are not gaining fast enough to transport military power as quickly as we would like. He added that the struggle would be close and hard, despite some improvement in protective measures. There was every reason to fear that submarines were being built faster than they were being destroyed. He expressed the opinion that they could not rely on the continuance of a reduced rate of sinkings in recent weeks.

According to the Washington correspondent of the New York Times, Elmer Davis, head of the War Information Office, said: “The enemy submarine sinkings of Allied merchant ships in February have been slightly hgiher than those of January. We have had three fairly good months. The situation has been quite good when we consider the rate of shipbuilding.