INTENSIVE ATTACKS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 7

INTENSIVE ATTACKS

AXIS SHIPPING LOSSES. AN OUTSTANDING WEEK. (British Official Wireless.) (Roc. 11.40 a.m.) RUGBY, April 29. The week which ended on April 27 completed a period of intensive attacks on Axis shipping. In all thirty attacks were made in seven days, some from the air and some by ships. The biggest single episode was the naval bombardment of Tripoli at dawn on April 21, in which three transports were set on fire, one being actually seen to sink. An ammunition ship exploded and a supply ship was sunk, while another was set seriously on fire and a destroyer heavily hit. Other British naval successes undertaken during the period, when the Navy was much occupied in the Eastern -Mediterranean, included the torpedoing of a 10,000-ton tanker, a 6000ton supplv ship and a 7000-ton ammunition ship in the Mediterranean, as well as the sinking of a fully-laden tanker on the way to Tripoli by the submarine Tetrareli.

An oil-tanker of over 10,000 tons which was endeavouring to run the blockade was also sunk by the submarine Urge. Ip the northern theatre tho R.A.F. registered hits on at least six ships while operating off the Norwegian coast and nine more vessels were bombed off the Dutch coast, including one supply- ship of SOOO tons a.nd one of 4000 tons which received three direct hits.

The week’s most sensational attack was delivered at dawn on April 25 from a height of only 25ft on a 1600ton supply ship one mile up the Nieume-Waterweg Canal between the Hook of Holland and Rotterdam. The ship’s crew were seen to dive into the canal. Some smaller ships were attacked with bombs and machine-gun fire during the same operation.