DOMINIONS’ NAVIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21400, 10 May 1944, Page 4

DOMINIONS’ NAVIES

STRONGEST IN HISTORY CANADA’S BIG FLEET NEW YORK, May 8. The approaching climax of the European war and the accelerated pace of the Pacific operations finds the Dominion navies the strongest in history, says the Associated Press. They have grown from less than 100 ships and 15,000 men before the war r.o aporoximatelv 1000 vessels, with 118,000 men. Australia and. Canada now build destroyers domestically. Canada, with about 80,000 men and 700 ships now rates third among the United Nations’ navies. The Australian navy now has over 25,000 men, comoared with a pre-war figure of 5170.

New Zealand naval men have increased more than ten times to about 7200. The Indian navy has also increased its staff tenfold. South Africa, starting from scratch before the war, now has over 6000 volunteers. Australia, despite her heavy losses in the first three years of war when half its pre-war fleet of 14 warships were lost in action, now has four cruisers, perhaps a dozen destroyers, 16 or more corvettes and several armed merchantmen, sloops and smaller vessels.