Evidence That U-Boat Crews Are Funking

Northern Advocate, 17 March 1944, Page 3

Evidence That U-Boat Crews Are Funking

NEW YORK, March 16

“U-boats, although in considerable numbers in the Atlantic, particularly the mid-Atlantic and towards the European side, would never dare attack well protected American convoys,” says the “New York Times.”

“Naval officers say that convoys are so well guarded that it would be extremely dangerous for a submarine to bore in. but they were unable to understand why U-boat commanders rarely even try. U-boats mostly prey on slow freight convoys which have not the celerity nor the owerwhelming protection of convoys carrying troops. “It seems logical to wonder whether the growing disinclination to attack means that the Nazis have lost their nerve or their taste for war. If fear or defeatism has actually gripped the once voracious wolf-packs, it is a highly significant development having an important bearing on the entire course of the war. If the Germans have gone soft it means they recognise that they are licked and do not want to suffer any worse punishment than is absolutely necessary. The real work of submarine killing is rarely done by a convoy’s own screen, but out ahead by task forces whose specific job is to sight and sink submarines.” “The ai’t of U-boat killing has been developed to a beautiful science which, when it can be told, will be one of the war’s most engrossing sagas.”