THE BATTLE OF THE SEAWAYS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4491, 17 October 1941, Page 5

THE BATTLE OF THE SEAWAYS

BRITISH LOSSES SHOW STEADY DECLINE.

A MEASURE .OF GERMAN DESPERATION.”

( By ths Military Correspondent of “ The Sydney Morning Herald.”)

Perhaps the most striking sections of Mr Churchill’s address to the Commons on 9th September referred to theUprogress made at ssa in spite of changing tactics of the enemy. The Prime Minister’s confirmation that July and August were good months at sea is the more satisfactory because visibility conditions, especially in the far northern waters, should have added enemy submarines and bombers. The Germans now openly admit that the aerial attack on shipping is more fruitful than the under-seas method, and there is no aoubt whatever that the damage inflicted by submarines has been relatively declining' for several months now, notwithstanding the fact that the enemy is using more submarines than ever. Long-range bombers have turned cut to be Hitler’s main weapon in the war on Allied shipping. The FockcWulf Kurier is Germany’s mainstay for the longer raids. This four-en-gined giant can carry three tons of bombs for 2309 miles at a speed of more than 200 miles an hour. The Kuriers sweep round in a great outer circle from bases on the French coast across the main convoy-channels west of Eire, and so to Norway. Other machines make direct two-way raids from Norwegian and French bases, returning in their tracks. RAIDERS’ HEAVY TOLL. The combined result is that all the waters out to the thirtieth parallel —that is, to beyond a line drawn through Iceland—are regularly with - in the range of heavy Nazi bombers. Merchantmen! plying to British ports are usually attack-ad in the latter stages of their journeys, the most dangerous bottle-necks being just oc.t of Plymouth, about 300 miles west of Eire, and immediately north of the tip of Scotland. Under these conditions the facts vouchsafed by Mr Church’ll are most encouraging The sinkings for March rocketed to 489,229 tons; in April the figure was 488,124 tons; and in May 461,328 tons. A continuation of this rate would have soon presented an almost insoluble problem. Over 110 ships a month were going to the bottom., and their valuable cargoes with them, and the most optimistic estimates could not foresee replacements at more than one-third of the ships being lost. Britain was rapidly and inexorably approaching the danger-line. Dominating the war situation was the grim fact that she had to keep 16,000,000 tons of shipping afloat if the British Isles were to continue the war, or even to survive. When the intensified Battle of the Atlantic started in March she had a surplus of 5,000,000 tons over that basic minimum, but when damaged vessels were added to outright sinkings that surplus was in danger of being wiped out. In May Germ.in v boasted, albeit prematurely, that the Atlantic was “virtually free” of Allied merchant shipping. AERIAL COUNTERSWEEPS. Then the tide turned. In June sinkings declined to 329,296 tons, and in July to somewhere between 150,000 and 190,000 tons. Although no details are available, it is known that August was also a “ good month.” Since Mr Churchill stated that Allied sinkings “ did not amount to much more than one-third of the German and Italian tonnage sunk ” in July and August, and since it is known that the enemy lost 416,000 tons of shipping in the five weeks ended 18th August, the inference is that these two months must, from the Allied point of view, have been amongst the best since the war started. The changed outlook is the result of the American naval and aerial patrols to Iceland, of the additional protection to British convoys, and of the development of Britain’s aerial sweeps out to sea, especially’ in intercepting long-range German bombers. The shortage of destroyers was counteracted by the rapid turning out of smaller corvettes; and the maximum efficiency’ of surface craft was secured by closer collaboration between aircraft and naval vesesls. This has b en perhaps the most striking development in the last four months.

Mr Churchill also rightly praised the constant struggle in the scientific laboratories to keep one stage ahead in the war against German mines. Germany is continuously launching new types of mines, only to be parried by the scientists and by the unsung crews of those motley fleets of small craft that daily keep open the approaches to the British coast. These are his “ twenty thousand men in a thousand ships ” —the mine-sweepers of Britain. RECENT AXIS LOSSES. The Prime Minister himself described as “ an extraordinary statement ” his revelation that we and our Allies are inflicting three times as many losses on the enemy as we are cui selves suffering at sea. Various partial statements in the last few months have justified the deduction that the Axis was losin** ruore tonnage than we were: but not even the most perfervid optimist could have concluded that Axis losses were thrice as great as ours. Of these losses more than 40 per cent were in th Mediterranean, and American ob-s-.ivers insist that the Battle of the Mediterranean is as vital to the Axis as the Battle of the Atlantic is to Britain. The real drain on the Axis started in April. According to Admiralty figures, no less than 600,000 tons of German and Italian shipping were lost in the six weeks before 10th May, by which date German v had lost 1,756,00 tons and Italy 1 090-000 tons. Another 60.00,0 tons “useful to the enemy ’ brought the total to no less than 2,912.000 tons, impart from vessels damaged. Intensified Allied activity during the ensuing three months increased this total to 4,007,000 tons by 16th August. Too much emphasis cannot be placed upon this achievement, for it is one of the most striking, and it might almost be said unexpected, developments of the whole war. In those three months Germany and Italy were losing shins at the average rate of almost 400,000 tons a month. When the war started Germany had no less than 4,482,662 gross tons of shipping and Italy 3 424,804 tons, and their acquisitions from the occupied countries were relatively insignificant. Roughly speaking, the Axis cannot have more than from a quarter to one third the total tonnage of the Allies, yet is actually losing three times as much. In terms of percentages, the total losses are of course much greater- and the only conclusion is that sinkings at this rate must considerably modify and limit the German war effort." A loss of well ever 4,000.000 tons must mean more to the Axis, with its limited shipping resources, than 7,350,000 tons do to the Allies. UNITED STATES SHIPS ATTACKED. There are still no signs of any diminution in the British offensive al sea. Retaliatory actions of the Coastal and Fighter Commands are driving back long-range enemy bombers, wnich are also being diverted to make up the wastage on the Russian front. The Fleet Air Arm an d the shore-based aeroplanes in the Mediterranean are harryine- the enemy from, the local waters of the Aegean to Tripoli harbour and northern Sardinia. The recent raid on an Italian convoy is only one of many such incidents. Germany is clearly taking action to redress the increasingly adverse balance at sea. The four warships sunk in the Barents Sea, although ostensibly acting as convoys, were no doubt also testing the possibility of surface-raiding. Enemy retaliatory action is clearly being developed against United States ships. Following closely upon the Greer incident came the sinking of an American freighter in the Red Sea, and next day news of the torpedoing of the United States Govern-ment-owned Sessa in the l Atlantic was released. The fact that these attacks were deliberate shows that the Nazis are not shrinking from the proroept of challenging .America’s part in the Battle of the Seaways; and this is a tribute to Allied successand a measure of German desperation.