TASK IN ATLANTIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24136, 1 December 1941, Page 7

TASK IN ATLANTIC

BATTLE WITHOUT LULL ESCORTS' GREAT WORK UNFORESEEN PROBLEMS (Rccd. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 20 The Battle of the Atlantic is a battle in which there is no lull; it is a battle which has certainly not yet been won. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. A. V. Alexander, gave this warning when addressing a Warships Week meeting at Blackpool. "It is a battle in which we have so far got through by working our all too few escort ships to the limit of endurance of material as well as men," said Mr. Alexander. "The number of days at sea and the number of miles steamed in a year by some of these ships is beyond what one would have thought possible." Pre-War N-aval Strategy Mr. Alexander, however, gave a cheering reminder that British imports had steadily increased since January. Commenting further on the Battle of the Atlantic, lie said: "Our building programmes and our naval strategy were studied and decided before the war on what seemed a perfectly reasonable assumption that in a war with Germany we .should enjoy the assistance of a very large and—as regards many units—modern and efficient French fleet. "Tasks calculated in terms of two navies have, since the defection of France, had to bo performed in the main by our own Navy alone, although f am not forgetting the invaluable direct and indirect aid we have received. The tasks themselves have multiplied or assumed proportions beyond anything that could have been foreseen until they form an aggregate unprecedented in our long sea history. Then and Now "In 1914-18 we had the great navies of our Allies at our side. Then the air menace hardly existed. Then we had the enemy pinned into the Baltic and Heligoland. Now we have been fighting for months alone against more powerful and speedier U-boats employing novel tactics, against raiders not improvised as was the case last time, but specially built for their task,- against a new and deadly form of mine, against fiercer attack from the air, against an enemy in possession of bases which last time were at our service." Mr. Alexander added these words about invasion: "The watch and work against invasion ceases not by day or night. The danger of invasion is in direct ratio to the vigilance of our guard against it." NEW WELDING PROCESS EFFECT ON TANK OUTPUT (Reed. 7.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Nov. 80 The United States Army Chief of Ordnance, Major-General C. M. Wesson, has revealed that the United States has developed a secret welding process making possible the production of tanks at the rate of 3000 a month by the summer of 1942. INITIATIVE IN ARCTIC (Reed. lO.lfi p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 30 The Moscow radio says Russian troops hold the initiative on the Murmansk front, where Russian patrols are constantly harassing the enemy and destroying communications. The Russians are consolidating their positions on the Vazhnaia heights, which were captured early in November. Soviet artillery on the Kandalaksha front smashed an enemy flank attack.