AFTER DUNKIRK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 5

AFTER DUNKIRK

THE NAVY’S BATTLE FIRST LORD’S STORY BEATING THE U-BOATS Rugby, June 17. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr W. F. Alexander, speaking to the Royal Empire Society, revealed that after the defection of the French Fleet and the operations by the Navy in connection with the evacuation of Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France there were more than 70 destroyers undergoing repairs in dockyards due to enemy damage.

Ten or 11 destroyers were sunk and heavy casualties suffered.

The effect was that there was an immediate increase in the loss of merchant shipping tonnage, which was

The first requirement was to place the damaged ships in service again. This was done in spite of the shipbuilding and repairing industry having been allowed to drop to too low a level in peace time, which meant the organisation of additional works and the training of workers, in itself a large task.

Nevertheless the ships came out, and though Britain did not build to the extent desired it was amazing how much was done to stiffen the strength o£ the fleet in the succeeding months. In addition to new destroyers and cruisers there had been added to the Fleet the tremendously important ships known as “corvettes,” which the Navy had now in very large numbers and he hoped would get in increasing numbers. ATLANTIC BATTLE Mr Alexander added that the defection of the French fleet meant the drafting of ships engaged in escort duty in the Atlantic to the Mediterranean to take the place of the casualtied vessels, which made the task of the other escorting ships more difficult. “I will say, despite any criticism, that the work has been done with such a measure of success as to enable all of us not to know anything of the pangs of hunger,” he declared. Dealing with the Battle of the Atlantic. Mr Alexander said it was quite certain that in the last four months the improved organisation of the northwest approaches had resulted in a weight of attack on enemy submarines which had meant that the enemy could not stop there and take it, but had to go to other areas. MENACE FROM AIR Regarding the menace from air attack, he pointed out that in the whole ot the last war, when the huge total c-f 12.000,000 tons of shipping was sunk by enemy action, only 8000 tons succumbed to air attack. To-day they had to face the air attack on shipping not only in coastal waters, but in the Mediterranean as well. What the Royal Navy rejoiced to see was the extent to which the Air Force in the last few weeks was beginning to take toll of enemy shipping, of which they had already sunk or captured 3.200.000 tons since the war started. In a tribute to the work of the Merchant Navy, Mr Alexander concluded: “It is perfectly grand when one hears of a merchant ship putting down a submarine or of a little ship off the northeast coast of Scotland coming into port with t’. ; remains of two planes on ibs decks, cr learns of a sea rescue tug shooting down a great and powerful long-range Nazi bomber.”—B.O.W.