GERMAN LOSSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24236, 1 March 1940, Page 7

GERMAN LOSSES

MERCHANT SHIPPING SIX PER CENT. OF TOTAL "V CAPTURES AND SOJITUNGS ALLIES’ IMPROVED POSITION (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) RUGBY, Feb. 28. (Received Feb. 29, at 7 p.m.) Up to Sunday the Germans lost by capture or scuttling 53 merchant ships. This represents 6 per cent, of the total German mercantile tonnage. During the same period Britain lost 159 merchantmen by enemy action, representing 1.6 per cent, of her ocean-going tonnage. The actual figures on which these calculations are based are from a return of the world’s merchant shipping dated June, 1938, which is the latest obtainable, and in which it is stated that there were 2328 German vessels of over 100 tons which totalled 4,243,835 tons. Britain had 7203 ocean-going ships, totalling 17,780,859 tons, and the dominions 2476 ships, totalling 3,166,961 tons. If gains by capture and new ships now available are included the British proportion is even better than these figures show. Convoy losses remain very small. During the week ended Sunday 225 neutral ships were convoyed by the navy without loss, while the total of the ships ’so guarded reached 1107, and they suffered loss equalling only one-fiftieth of 1 per cent.

DUTCH VESSEL TORPEDOED TWENTY-SIX MISSING LONDON, Feb. 28. When the captain of the Glenorchy sighted an apparently empty boat 80 miles from Spain, as a precautionary measui’e he sounded the whistle, and the boat immediately became alive. It contained the captain, the chief engineer and 11 members of the crew of the Den Haag (Dutch; 8971 tons), which was torpedoed without warning on February 15. The survivors were in the last stages of exhaustion after drifting for days in rough seas. The occupants had lain down to die in the bottom of the boat. Twenty-six members of the Den Haag’s crew are missing.

NORWEGIAN SHIP MISSING OSLO, Feb. 28. Hope has been abandoned for the Norwegian steamer Start (1765 tons), which has been missing since January 29, She was on her way to Norway, and carried a crew of 16. DUTCH VESSEL FEARED LOST COPENHAGEN, Feb. 28. - The United Danish Steamship Company reports that the Maryland (4895 tons), with a crew of 34, is feared to have been lost while homeward bound from Madeira, laden with oilcakes.