Toll Of Shipping Valuable Aid To Blockade

Northern Advocate, 17 November 1941, Page 6

Toll Of Shipping Valuable Aid To Blockade

(Rec. 1 p.m.) RUGBY, November 16. The steadily growing toll of enemy shipping exacted week after week by British surface craft, submarines, the Fleet Air Arm and the Bomber Commands of the Royal Air Force, were described by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot), in a speech at Brighton, as an “immense reinforcement of the blockade.” When the British Navy intercepts a blockade runner, he said, the advantage was threefold, firstly because the enemy lost his cargo, secondly he lost the use of a ship which would not again be available for his purpose and thirdly it was a salutary warning to anyone else who was planning to evade the British control and to ship goods to undesirable destinations. Salutory Effect “To assess the results of our sea blockade you must look not only at the cargoes which are seized but the cargoes that are never loaded,” he said. “Since July, 1940, every ship owner has known that if he sends to any European port any single item which we have not approved in advance, he runs the risk of forfeiting both the cargo and the vessel itself. “But it is not enough to cut off supplies that might otherwise reach the enemy from distant parts of the world. It is hardly less essential from the economic warfare point of view to prevent his using the sea routes round the coast of Europe. Hitler’s Transport Problem Cne of the greatest problems facing Hitler is transport. To replace sea transport by land transport on any considerable scale is an undertaking of the greatest difficulty. A ship of 3000 tons can carry the same load as half-a-dozen trains and carry it much mere economically. “The railways of German-occupied Europe have been bearing a colossal burden during the past 18 months, a burden which has been substantially increased by the demands of the Russian campaign. “More Axis ships are sunk and more coastal traffic is slowed up and more of these waters become dangerous both to vessels and crews and a greater strain is placed on transport, especially railways. This is an example of how operations undertaken largely for other reasons may also serve the purpose of the blockade.”