CATTLE OF THE SEAS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 128, 1 May 1941, Page 7

CATTLE OF THE SEAS

COMBERS' NOTABLE PART. LONDON, April 30. The Bomber Command io wag.ng an unheralded offensive battle in the North boa and the Atlantic. The daylight operations from April 17 to 23 roaiiltcu in 42,000 tons ol German shipping being sunn or damaged oil' the German, Dutch, i’rench and Norwegian coasts.

| Bomber Command planes on the morning of Ala roll 131 sighted two 3000-ton tankers westward of Lc j Havre, presumably going - to refuel submarines and Atlantic anti-aircraft 1 sh.ps. Ahead and astern, ignoring the - Huns, the bombers dived to within 1200 ft. They directly hit. the first oil I tanker, from which clouds of steam land smoke arose. Then three bombs j directly hit the second tanker. The i bombers then attacked again and |swept the decks with their machineguns, leaving the tankers enveloped in pillowing smoke. Planes ol the Bomber Command have not hesitated to attack even heavily-armed ships protected by destroyers and anti-aircraft ships escorted by fighters. The reliance that is placed in neutral countries on the British operational figures as against those given by Dr. Goebbels to Germany’s masses is well illustrated by comment from the (Swedish newspaper N.U. on the British shipping losses, says the British Official Wireless. The old and wellknown firm of Lloyd’s, declared N.U., confirms the British figures, and it says: “If the British figures are incorrect, then Lloyd’s have deviated from their century-old tradition.”

Referring to the British shipping losses of 1916-17, N.U. declares that the figures of the two belligerents at that time differed to approximately the same extent as now, and it has since been proved which figures were inaccurate during the last war. N.U. produces a table showing that as time went on the German figures were increasingly inaccurate, in 1918 the Germans reported about 600,000 tons sunk monthly, while actually the figure was about 600,000 tons.

“Had the German figures Been correct in the last war Britain's fate would have been sealed by the beginning of 1918. but in actual fact the effectiveness of the mines and submarines was less, and the American capacity to produce now vessels was greater than the Germans had calculated,” it states.