LOSSES COMPARED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23594, 1 March 1940, Page 7

LOSSES COMPARED

BRITAIN AND GERMANY WARFARE AT SEA SECURITY IN CONVOYS By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received February '2'.K •1.35 p.m.) British Wireless LONDON, Feb. 28 It is revealed thai up to February 25 the Germans had lost by capture or scuttling 53 merchant ships. This represents 6 per cent of the total German mercantile tonnage. In the same period Britain lost 159 merchantmen by enemy action, representing 1.6 per cent of her oceangoing tonnage.

The actual figures on which those calculations are based are from a return of the world's merchant shipping dated .Tune, 1938, which is the latest obtainable and in which it is slated that there were 2328 German vessels of more than 100 tons, which totalled 4,243,835 tons. Britain had 7203 ocean-going ships totalling 17,780,8")9 tons, and the Dominions 2476 ships totalling 3,166,961 tons. If the gains by capture and new ships now available are included, the British proportion is even better than those figures show. Convoy losses remain very small. In the week ended February 25 neutral ships convoyed by the Navy without loss totalled 225, and the total ships so guarded reached 1107. They sustained a loss equalling only one-fiftieth, of 1 per cent.

FOUR DAYS ADRIFT DUTCH SEAMEN SAVED OWN VESSEL TORPEDOED TWENTY-SIX MEN LOST LONDON, Fob. 28 When the captain of the steamer Glenorehy sighted an apparently empty boat 80 miles out from Spain, he sounded his whistle as a precautionary measure. The boat immediately became alive. It contained the captain, chief engineer and 11 members of the crew of the Dutch tanker Den Haag, which was reported missing and believed lost, with a cargo of 11,000 tons of oil, on February 21. The ship had been torpedoed without warning on February 15. The survivors, who were in the last stages of exhaustion after having drifted for four days in rough seas, had laid down to die in the bottom of the boat. Twenty-six of the crew are missing.

TRADE AGREEMENTS POSITION OF BRITAIN THE RIGHT OF SEARCH British "Wireless LONDON, Feb. 28 The Minister of Economic Warfare, Mr. Ronald Hibbert Cross, in the House of Commons to-day said tho whole trade of tho countries concerned in the war was covered by various agreements. Britain was entitled to seize any contraband goods suspected of going to an enemy destination. "We cannot detain imports to neutral countries if we are assured they are not going to Germany," said Mr. Cross. " Therefore, we have had to obtain guarantees that such imports will ho used exclusively for the domestic requirements of the countries concerned."

Regarding goods produced in neutral countries, it was usually stipulated that goods of purely domestic origin might he exported to both belligerents on a peace-time level, and as these were the goods which had not passed through British patrols Britain had not the same control as of their overseas imports. " It must be remembered," said the Minister, "that the maintenance of these exports is vital to the economic life of the neutral countries concerned, arid in many cases we ourselves benefit from the exports to at least as great, if not greater, degree than Germany. " There is nothing in these war trade agreements to prevent us from exorcising our full belligerent rights in respect to any consignments as regards to which we have evidence of enemy destination."

ESCAPE FROM BELGIUM INTERNED BRITISH AIRMEN (Received February 20, fi.s p.m.) LONDON. Feb. 28 Five British airmen are reported to have reached England aftor making their escape from a Belgian fort where they had been interned with 12 others, says the Brussels correspondent of the News Chronicle.

GERMANS RECAPTURED LONDON, Fefi. 28 A local baker and two friends recaptured the Germans who escaped from an east of Scotland internment camp. They saw the Germans walking to Edinburgh, chased them across a field and held them down until the police arrived.