ALLIED CONVOY TO RUSSIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 April 1943, Page 5

ALLIED CONVOY TO RUSSIA

34 SHIPS LOST OUT OF 38

SYDNEY. March 26

Lord Winster (formerly Commander R. T. H. Fletcher, a Labour M.P.), disclosed in the House of Lords, in a debate on the U-boat menace, that in one Arctic convoy to Russia 34 ships were lost out of 38. reports a “Sydney Morning Herald” London correspondent.

The “Daily Express’s” naval writer says that Lord Winster was apparently referring to the war’s worst Allied convoy disaster last July, when the enemy claimed the annihilation of an entire convoy carrying 250,000 tons of aircraft, tanks, munitions and food.

Official German reports claimed that 19 merchant ships were destroyed by bombers and nine by Üboats off Spitzbergen and that all the others were destroyed in a "pursuit battle” in the Barents Sea. What happened was that, after an incessant air attack, which inflicted severe losses, the convoy evaded a German battle squadron, including the battleship Tirpitz, but was again attacked by bombers near Archangel. Then U-boats finished off stragglers, only four ships completing lhe voyage.