THE U-BOAT CHALLENGED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25561, 14 June 1944, Page 4

THE U-BOAT CHALLENGED

If, as Hitler suggested in his cheerless New Year message to the people of the Reich, the failure of his U-boat campaign was due to “ one single technical invention ” of the Allies, German science has been discouragingly long in finding an antidote. The statement last week by Mr Churchill and President Roosevelt concerning the war against the U-boats records a reduction in May in Allied shipping losses to these marauders to “ by far ” the lowest figure of the entire war. In fact, where previously the Allies were forced to accept as the price of maintaining vital supply routes a heavy rate of sinkings, with only a few U-boat casualties to thousands of tons of shipping, the position is now shown in the authoritative report from the Allied leaders to have been entirely reversed. This trend was the subject of comment in the joint statement by the Prime Minister and the President covering the

U-boat situation in January of the present year, when the number of enemy raiders' accounted for was greater than the number of Allied merchant ships sunk. The May period has added an interesting elaboration to this strikiftg change of aspect of the U-boat offensive, in the fact that Allied merchant shipping losses have been “ a fraction ” of those inflicted on the merchant shipping of the enemy, small as the Nazi merchant fleet is, and limited as its activity must be. Mr Churchill and the President do not, it is to be noted, claim that the U-boat has been finally eliminated as a source of danger to Allied operations. For the May period, they refer to a lull “ which perhaps indicates preparations for a renewed offensive.” Indeed, the developments in France in the present month must be expected to offer to the enemy an almost irresistible invitation to renew and increase his submarine activities. The plain purpose of the Allies, apart from their larger aims, is to establish a constant supply line from the English coast to Normandy. The equally plain duty of the enemy to endeavour to defeat, or at least to hinder, them in this purpose, can only be discharged by constant attack upon Allied shipping. In view of the conspicuous, but not incomprehensible, failure of the Luftwaffe to accept a challenge which might prove its undoing, it seems inevitable. that the U-boats should be called upon ito harass the Allied ships supplying the Normandy beach-head. Certainly there must be a considerable U-boat fleet quartered in Bay of Biscay ports, whence in happier times for them they .preyed on Atlantic shipping with disturbingly successful results. In the past they have, for the obvious reason of their greater vulnerability to air attack, avoided the shallow waters of the Channel. It is difficult to believe that they can longer avoid them, in view of the magnitude of the stakes; certainly they could nowhere hope to find more targets or targets of more military value. It will not, therefore, be surprising if a proportion of loss is experienced in the cross-Channel operations, that will produce for a time an increased Allied shipping mortality rate. The Allies have no doubt made due allowance for this possibility. They will have ready for action not only the “ single technical invention” which baffles Hitler, but their complete anti-subma-rine system, to protect the shipping lanes along which supplies and reinforcements are pouring into France. It is possible that a U-boat challenge born of desperation might be not entirely disadvantageous to the Allies. The confined Channel waters would provide their antisubmarine forces with an unprecedented opportunity.