Atlantic and Indian Ocean Battlefields

Northern Advocate, 11 July 1942, Page 1 (Supplement)

Atlantic and Indian Ocean Battlefields

i"pj September 4, 1939, one day after the declaration of war on Germany, an event occurred which forecast the Atlantic Ocean’s role as a vital battlefield in the war to come. When the liner Athenia was sunk ’ it was impressed upon the world that once again Germany intended to pursue a policy of unrestricted sea warfare with no consideration for any humanitarian principles.

Linking the United States, great arsenal of democracy, with the British Isles, forward bastions of democracy in the war against the European aggressors, the Atlantic Ocean was first among the oceans to be seen as a battlefield that would spread eventually to all the oceans. Relentless, remorseless, 24-hour-a----day war has raged on the Atlantic ever since the Athenia was sent to the bottom. For seafarers, the Atlantic has been a path of peril.

Yet although several millions of tons of shipping and thousands of brave men have sunk beneath the waters of the Atlantic since that time, the degree of Germany’s success is to be measured by the fact that the vital lifeline between the United States and Great Britain has continued to function.

The Indian Ocean is a comparative newcomer among publicly-recognised vital battle zones, though the effort expended in 1941 to rid its western boundaries of Italian influence suggests that high strategists were longsighted. Today, there are many who think with the great South African statesman, General Smuts, . the Battle of the Indian Ocean is Armageddon.”