U-BOAT CAMPAIGN

Grey River Argus, 28 April 1943, Page 2

U-BOAT CAMPAIGN

SINKING OF U.S. CARRIER DENIED. WASHINGTON, April 26. Berlin radio stated that the United States aircraft-carrier Ranger had been torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic. The United States Navy Department denied this. Its spokesman said that neither the Ranger nor any other American carrier had been sunk or damaged in any ocean Colonel Frank Knox, United States Secretary of the Navy, said that Senator Truman’s Committee’s report to the Senate that 12,000,000 tons of Allied shipping had been lost in 1942 was obviously wrong. He did not explain whether the figure was too great or too small. Colonel Knox said over-all Allied ship-building actually exceeded the total of Allied ship losses. The shipping loss figures had never been officially disclosed. Therefore the Senator Truman Committee figure must have been derived from some unauthorised and uninformed source. GERMAN CLAIMS DENIED. (.Rec. 9.35) WASHINGTON, April 26. Rear-Admiral Land, Chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, has denied the German claim that me U-boats have sunk thirty million tons of the United Nations’ shipping. He also disclosed that American yards were turning out five ships every twenty-four hours, equalling nearly nineteen million tons, deadweight, for 1943. He added: “One million tons of shipping that was interned ,in American ports is now operating.”