U-BOATS HARRY CONVOY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22477, 12 January 1943, Page 3

U-BOATS HARRY CONVOY

Dispersed By Aircraft And Escort Losses On Both Sides i By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (Rec. 6.50 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 10. Successful co-operation between British, Polish and Norwegian escort ships and British, United States and Canadian aircraft recently secured the arrival of an important Atlantic convoy. It is described as a series of 35 actions extending intermittently over four days and nights. The Admiralty and Air Ministry jointly state that the convoy did not escape without loss but the Allied forces almost certainly sank two U-boats and finally drove off the enemy. Describing the operations of Coastal Command aircraft in helping to disperse the powerful U-boat pack that was massing to attack an important convoy from the United States to Britain, the Air Ministry News Service says that in nine hours two Liberators attacked 11 of 13 U-boats sighted and probably sank two. Several others were damaged and the remaining forced to crash-dive. In this way many of the enemy were unable to launch their torpedoes although the ships were only a few miles away. Squadron Leader T. M. Bulloch, an ace U-boat hunter, attacked seven of the eight submarines he sighted and his first attack was successful. After dropping depth charges on top of it as it attempted to crash-dive he saw about 40 feet of a submarine sticking out of the water. Further charges left a patch of oil nearly 800 yards long and a mass of wreckage on the water. A joint Admiralty and Air Ministry statement described numerous attacks on other submarines by surface craft and aircraft during several days and nights. Ultimately the U-boats abandoned the chase altogether and the last 36 hours of the convoy’s passage to home waters passed without incident. No. 1 Naval Problem (Rec. 9.0) WASHINGTON, Jan. 8. Admiral Stark, commander of the United States Naval Forces in European waters, who is here for a consultation, told a press conference that he was of the opinion all along that the war would be long and tough. Admiral Stark added emphatically “I still think so.” He deprecated wishful thinking about an early end to the war, and characterised the submarine as No. 1 naval problem. “Our present shipping losses are something to be mighty uncomfortable about. I wish we were knocking out the submarines faster.” A sufficient number of destroyers, corvettes and planes are clearly more than a match for U-boats even when employing “wolf pack” tactics, says the naval correspondent of the London “Times.” The answer to the shoals of U-boats is a sufficiency of anti-U-boat craft, the skill of the commanders of which is undoubted, but we must have enough of them, which means more than we have ever had.