AXIS SUBS

Grey River Argus, 25 February 1943, Page 5

AXIS SUBS

SUNK BY AMERICANS. WASHINGTON, February 23. The sinking of a German submarine in the Atlantic and a Japanese submarine in ' the Pacific are announced by the Navy Department. The Secretary of the Navy (Colonel Knox) said the two sinkings were not isolated cases, but a percentage of other successful attacks must be classified as probables only. He explained that the Navy did not publish the total submarines destroyed or probably destroyed for security reasons. He added that, generally speaking, shipping losses in the Atlantic had been much lowei’ in the last three months, nevertheless most emphatically, the submarine was still the gravest menace. The Associated Press says that the German U-boat was sunk by a destroyer, and the Japanese submarine was destroyed by a merchantman. Without warning, the- Japanese torpedoed the cargo ship at night. The crew and 35 passengers prepared to abandon ship amid flames, smoke and debris, but the Japanese submarine commander made the fatal mistake of coming to the surface immediately after firing the torpedo and shelled the merchantman with a heavy deck gun at a range of only 200 yards. The Japanese shells missed, and the cargo ship’s crew opened fire with two guns. They had only four shells available as the torpedo had jammed the ships ammunition boxes. However, the four proved enough, as two direct hits were scored, and the submarine slowly sank, spreading oil and debris over the water. The merchantman then opened fire with her machine-guns and poured 400 rounds into the sinking submarine. Next morning the cargo ship was still afloat and was recovered and towed into an Allied port. Both the ship and cargo were saved.