AFRICAN LANDING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20958, 4 December 1942, Page 3

AFRICAN LANDING

11 SMALL VESSELS GOOD BALANCE SHEET (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) ' (Noon.) RUGBY, Dec. 3. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. A. V. Alexander, in the House of Commons, announced the loss of the following naval ships in the North African operations: The destroyers Broke and Martin, the corvette Gardinia, the cutters Walney and Hartland, the sloop Ibis, the depot ship Hecla, the mine-sweeper Algerine, thn anti-aircraft escort ship Tonwald, and the small aircraft carrier Avenger. In addition, the Netherlands Navy lost the destroyer Isaac Sweers, which had fought many battles along with the British Navy and on December 13, 1941, took such a gallant part in the action which led to the destruction of two Italian cruisers and the crippling of a torpedo boat. The Walney and Hartland were two former American coastal cutters. They were lost in a gallant attempt to prevent the scuttling of blockships in the harbour of Oran. They broke through the boom and, although on lire, succeeded in penetrating the inner harbour and before being sunk landed troops at the west end of the Bassin Gueybin. The Broke was a successor to an earlier destroyer of that name which in • the • last war rammed and boarded a German destroyer in the English Channel. She was damaged as she burst through the boom at Algiers, enabling me Allied forces to enter the harbour. In this gallant action she was so severely damaged that she subsequently sank. Before the Ibis was sunk by air attack her guns disposed of two Junkers and one Heinkel.

Mr. Alexander paid: “Tales of gallantry and devotion to duty should be told to include every ship that was in the action. The examples given demonstrated, if that was necessary, that the spirit of the Royal Navy ana the Merchant Navy remains as always equal to every demand upon it.” Since the landings on the North African coast we had been able to announce that our submarines in the Mediterranean had destroyed three tankers, seven supply ships, and two destroyers, while, in addition, a Gin. gun cruiser, two destroyers and four supply ships had been severely damaged. In the air, up to the last assessment, 25 enemy aircraft were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire from our ships and 15 more so severely damaged as to be probably destroyed. Eight other aircraft were destroyed by naval aircraft operating from, carriers and two possibly destroyed, while a further 39 were known to have been damaged by gunfire or carrier-borne fighters. “This, then, is the balance sheet,” be added. “In these great tasks our tosses so far have been considerably; less than we expected and far less than the enemy claims.”