AGEKRAK BLOCKADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1940, Page 5

AGEKRAK BLOCKADE

EAST FORTY GERMAN SHIPS SUNK

■jt l Transports and Supply Vessels

I rriSH ADMIRALTY GIVES SOME DETAILS

■HEAVY TOLL TAKEN OF ENEMY LIVES

/ Since the German invasion of Norway three weeks ago, •ates a Daventry broadcast, the Germans have lost at least prty transports and supply ships. Figures issued by the British Admiralty show how these losses are made up. Twenty-eight German transports are known to have been sunk, another ship was scuttled, one set on fire and another ten were hit by torpedoes and probably sunk. To this total ■jf forty must be added an unknown number of ships sunk by nines which the British Navy laid in the Skagerrak. If only half of the ships sunk were carrying' troops and tach had on board 400 men the Germans may well have lost 1000 men. The bodies of 3000 have been reported as having' .been washed up on the shores of Oslo Fiord. On the other lhand, the German attempt to make the waters of the west coast of Norway untenable has had only slight results. The Admiralty denies a claim by the Germans that they have sunk five cruisers and thirteen transports in the last few days. The only British losses were two small trawlers, one of which was sunk by bombs and the other set on fire.

ALLIED AIR SUCCESSES

Communiques issued by the Norwegian Army and the British Air Ministry give evidence of Allied successes in the air. A Norwegian communique reports that two German machines and one British plane were brought down in a violent air battle. One German and one British plane landed in flames and the second German plane was shot down. The Air Ministry reports that a Sunderland Hying boat shot down one of Germany’s latest and fastest fighters, a Messerschmitt 110, in a battle over a Norwegian fiord. The British plane had just landed near a warship when a German bombing attack was made. The plane eventually took off and attacked the Messerschmitt, which soon afterwards crashed into the sea. Another Sunderland flying boat accounted for a German U-boat during a reconnaissance flight over a Norwegian fiord.’ The U-boat was lying close inshore. The first bomb landed just above it and the second right beside it and these were followed by another explosion from the submarine itself and patches of oil were all that remained on the water when the flying boat continued its flight. THE LAND OPERATIONS The latest British War Office communique states that the Allied forces are holding the Germans in check in their drive along the Gudbrandsdal Valley towards Trondheim. The Allies are reported to be holding fairly strong positions at a point south of Dombas. The Germans are trying to gel between the Allied positions by crossing the mountains' from an adjoining valley and this has resulted in fighting on the railway between Dombas and Trondheim. In the Osterdal Valley the Germans have occupied Roros, but are held up a few miles to the north, where Norwegian troops have blown up a railway bridge and are said to hold strong positions in that vicinity. A British communique reports only patrol activity between .Trondheim and Namsos, in which area the Allied forces have established themselves under cover of the forest as a protection against air attack. The Germans apparently are trying to strengthen the garrison at Trondheim by conveying troops by air to that place from Oslo, as many large German planes have been seen flying northward and it is believed they are carrying troops. For the second time in three days the Germans have bombed the Red Cross. A Norwegian hospital ship has been bombed'and five people, including a doctor, were killed and many injured.