WORLD PROBLEM

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23321, 3 October 1945, Page 2

WORLD PROBLEM

Sweeping Of Mines Since V-E Day a total of 1033 mines has been swept in the waters around the British Isles alone, said an article in the London “Daily Telegraph.” The end of the war in Europe has not reduced the commitments of the British minesweeping flotilla in home waters, while those abroad have greatly increased. In due course the world-wide problem of mine-cleare nee will be dealt with by an international organisation in which the maritime nations will have zones for which they will be responsible. Most of the minesweeping being done to-day is a development of operational sweeping. That is. existing channels have to be widened to accommodate ordinary maritime trade instead of only the passage of warships. Thus, one of the biggest jobs being undertaken by British minesweepers is the widening of the “gaps” in the great British mine barrage. This stretched the length of the East Coast from the North of Scotland to the Thames Estuary. The number of mines actually swept gives little indication of the amount of work involved. For instance, one of the clearance tasks recently carried out was the searching of an old British field far out in the south-western approaches. It was hardly expected that the sweepers would find mines in this field, but the area had to be thoroughly searched. A flotilla of fleet minesweepers worked for the best part of a month, but at the end of it they had nothing to show except the fact that the area was no longer considered dangerous. The widening of channels and the clearance of fields cannot, of course, be undertaken all at once. All manner of priorities have to be considered. Even the housing shortage in Great Britain has its minesweeping component. for it demands the sweeping of passages for the import of timber from Scandinavia.