WARFARE AT SEA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24253, 21 March 1940, Page 9

WARFARE AT SEA

SINKINGS LAST WEEK BRITISH AND NEUTRAL MAJORITY MINE VICTIMS EXAGGERATED NAZI CLAIMS (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, Mar. 19. The Admiralty announced that for the week ending March 17 three British ships, with a total tonnage of 5499, two French (3172), and four neutral (15,321) were lost as the result of enemy action. None was being convoyed. The majority of the vessels were sunk bv illegal mines, and only four ships have been sunk by U-boats since February 24. Those U-boats which had escaped destruction were presumably withdrawn in order that the crews might rest and recover from shattered nerves. Of 12,816 British, Allied, and neutral ships convoyed to March 13 only 28 were lost. The French navy convoyed over 2000 vessels, of which only four were lost. German claims about British losses at sea are the subject of the following Admiralty statement: —“ Fantastic and untrue statements of British losses at sea are constantly being made by the enemy, very often in, order to obtain information. A statement containing the full list of all British, Allied and neutral mercantile losses due to enemy action is issued every week by the Admiralty, and this statement is the British answer to all such German claims.” The French steamer Capitane Augustin (3137 tons) was sunk by a mine off the east coast of England last Sunday. Two were killed and 28 saved, of whom two were seriously wounded. The German steamer Uhenfels (7603 tons) arrived at Gibraltar with a prize crew on board after capture by the British Navy in the South Atlantic. The Times points out that when, as on the Scapa Flow occasion, the attack is made at dusk, in order presumably to minimise casualties to the attackers, it is difficult, if not impossible. for airmen to observe or photograph either the fall of their bombs

or the identity of their targets. The German Command must therefore rely for its knowledge upon such information as Britain can be induced to vouchsafe in its public announcement. “ Those, therefore, who hear the Hood, Repulse, Renown, and other ships cited in German communiques as having been hit by bombs, will recognise the motive by which the claims are made.”