LOOKED FOR FIGHT

Grey River Argus, 14 December 1943, Page 4

LOOKED FOR FIGHT

Anglo-U.S.A. Fleet GERMANS REFUSE TO COME OUT. (Rec. 10.20.) LONDON, Dec. 13.. A Reuter’s correspondent with the Home Fleet states: The pride of the German Fleet in northern waters had a chance to engage a combined British and American Naval force, but it refused to give battle. The biggest Allied Naval force ever assembled in. the northern water s sailed, under British command, within two hundred miles of the Norwegian coast. It did everything possible to make its presence known to the Germans. But the mighty battleship “Tirpitz,” and its satellites, the “Luetzow,” “Scharnhorst,” “Gneisenau,” “Admiral Sheer,” and the rest would not come out and fight. This was much to the disgust of the thousands of fighting men in the Allies’ ships. The operation was under the command of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, Comman-der-in-Chief of the Home Fleet. The American ships operated as an integral part of the Home Fleet. The force included, among other ships, the “Duke of York,” in which Admiral Fraser flew his flag, the “Scylla,’the aircraft-carrier “Furious,” with an escort screen of British and American destroyers. When near their objective the Fleet’s guns opened up. The ships sailed nearer to the German occupied coast, and a German ’plane flew over, but nothing more happened. The Germans either were completely unaware of the movements, which was unlikely; -or they just lay in the fiords. If they were not hoodwinked, they were intimidated.