“HIGHLY SECRET”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4523, 14 January 1942, Page 8

“HIGHLY SECRET”

A NEW AMMUNITION, DEALING WITHJU-BOATS Britain disclosed recently that she was manufacturing a “new and highly secret” ammunition for the battle of the Atlantic, the formula for which presumably has been passed on to the United States, as are '.other British military secrets, stated an Associated Press message from London in the New York Times under November 1. Disclosure that the new ammunition is being used by some British warships on convoy escort duty was made in a Ministry of Supply announcement telling a commonplace story of 20 Welsh factory hands who worked through the night to get out a rush order of the new stuff for a truck load. Factory employees were told “how important the job was,” the Ministry said, “and worked or without a break.” Finally, at 3 a.m., the whole consignment left the factory, and later that morning the waiting warship swung the ammunition oh board and cast off” to guard a convoy. The new ammunition is more than ordinarily secret. Most higher-ups, on being asked about it, said they had not heard of it. One who had, would not talk of it, “even off the record.” Authoritative quarters on London would neither confirm nor deny a report abroad that the British were now’ filling their depth charges for naval warfare with an explosive 47 times more powerful than TNT. Informed observers, however, said they believed that such a superdepth charge would be too much to hope for. They said that if the report' should 'be true, it would give Britain and the United States a powerful trump in the Battle of the Atlantic, although, they thought it would not be a decisive factor.

“The big job is to find the U-boat, and then drop depth charges,” they said. “The present type of charges is pretty effective once' the destroyer finds the ‘sub.’ ” These sources also refused flatly to say whether the new ammunition had any relation to Britain’s new aerial bomb which has been described as five times more powerful than explosives used previously. The belief was expressed in some circles, however, that the new ammunition might be a most effective depth charge or more powerful small calibre shells. The fact that only one truck load was ordered was regarded as indicating that the warship using it was relatively small.