WAR ON U-BOATS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24970, 17 July 1942, Page 3

WAR ON U-BOATS

AMERICAN PATROL SHIPS CONVOY SYSTEM EXTENDED (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 15. The Secretary of the Navy, Colonel F. Knox, disclosed that the navy was already using an increasing number of commandeered small boats, mainly fishing vessels, for patrol work against submarines. He added that these boats were equipped with detection devices and had already contributed to the reducing of the U-boat toll along the coast. Special crews for these boats were trained in Florida. Colonel Knox also revealed that the convoy system which has been employed on the eastern coast of the United States since the middle of May has been extended to the Caribbean Sea, and will eventually include the Gulf of Mexico. He expressed satisfaction at the success of the convoys. The Navy Department at Washington announced that a U-boat sank a medium-sized United States merchantman off the north coast of South America, with the loss of 10 lives. A Japanese plane dive-bombed and sank a medium-sized Panamanian ship in the Indian Ocean. Six of the 34 survivors related that other Japanese planes machine-gunned the sinking ship, wounding two members of the crew. ADDITIONAL SINKINGS (Rec. 2 a.m.) WASHINGTON, July 16. The Navy Department reports that 372 passengers and members of the crew were rescued from a mediumsized American merchantman torpedoed 400 miles off the Atlantic coast. Only nine lives were lost, although the ship sank within four minutes. The other sinkings announced were a largo British ship sunk in the midAtlantic. a medium-sized United States ship lost in the Caribbean Sea, and a medium-sized Norwegian vessel torpedoed in the Atlantic. Sixteen lives were lost in the three ships.