THE WAR AT SEA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24950, 24 June 1942, Page 4

THE WAR AT SEA

The intensity of the day and night assault which was launched by the Axis sea and air forces upon two British convoys in the Mediterranean last week made losses inevitable. It is a truism that even if a convoy has maximum protection victims must fall to a sufficient concentration of hostile craft. One of the harshest facts that have to be faced by the Allied nations in the bitter war on the seas, which now ranges the globe from the waters of the Tasman Sea to the United States Atlantic seaboard, is that ships must be lost in order that the war may be won. The merchant service is accepting, day in and day out, an almost disproportionate share of the dangers and the sacrifices that have to be borne by the men of the United Nations. Ships must be lost. It is the test of the skill, the tenacity, and the courage of those men of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy who participated in these Mediterranean engagements that, in spite of losses which are described as considerable, the convoys got through to their destinations. A great flotilla from Alexandria was taking supplies to Malta which were necessary to sustain that island fortress in its triumphant survival. It discharged its task, while the naval escort took a heavy toll from among the Italian ships which adventured fleetingly within range. At least one cruiser and two destroyers were sunk, and many aircraft were destroyed. The grim necessities which ordain that United Nations shipping must continually expose itself to, and even invite, attack by a ruthless enemy have seldom been more strikingly emphasised than in this Mediterranean battle, but the need is not confined to the Mediterranean. Shipping losses, along every vital sea-lane used by the United Nations, will continue in greater or less degree while the war lasts. At the present time the Axis actually is, largely through longrange submarine activities in the North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, sinking Allied merchant vessels in a number that exceeds the capacity for immediate replacement. Among all the critical battles that must be fought out in 1942, that of shipping has become one of the • most vital, as the tone of British press comment in the past few days has clearly indicated. But there is good reason for confidence that it is a battle which the Axis cannot win. President Roosevelt's New Year promise of merchant ship launchings of 8,000,000 tons in the present year is being wonderfully ratified. The rate of delivery is now touching two ships a day, and the Daily Telegraph believes that by the northern autumn three 10,000-ton merchant ships will daily be coming from American shipbuilding yards. British construction, which in the darkest days of the war was the main factor in keeping the sea-lanes open, has increased its output by more than 50 per cent, during two years of

operating under almost incredible difficulties. The naval building programme of the democracies complements merchant shipping production. To combat U-boats and surface raiders, and to protect sea communications in such areas as the Mediterranean, carrier-based aircraft, long-range reconnaissance planes and bombers, and a host of smaller naval craft—submarine chasers, destroyers, and other types of patrol and convoy • vessel —are required. Certain fortunate circumstances here favour the Allies. A programme for the construction of aircraft carriers on an expanded scale is in hand,. the outcome of which will be the production in time of literally scores of these ships; aircraft production has already reached extraordinary proportions; and the lighter types of ship needed for the offensive against the U-boat can be, and will be, turned out rapidly by mass production methods.