COASTAL COMMAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1942, Page 4

COASTAL COMMAND

OPERATIONS NOW LARGELY OFFENSIVE GREAT INCREASE IN PLANE STRENGTH. CEASELESS WAR AGAINST U-BOATS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) RUGBY, July 8. There are now more aircraft in the Coastal Command than there were in the entire R.A.F. before the war. A result is that whereas in the first two years of the war the Coastal Command concentrated on defensive duties and protecting shipping, today it is able to turn largely to offensive. From Iceland to Gibraltar, across five and a half million square miles, long-range seacraft fly daily patrols in a ceaseless hunt for U-boats. For every Coastal Command aircraft now engaged on shipping escort, four are out on offensive anti-submarine sweeps. Coastal Command aircraft have just completed fifty million miles flying, as a result of which long and often hazardous supply routes have been kept open, convoys protected and many U-boats destroyed. U-boats today, though driven further afield, still have to use European bases. It is on their way to and from these bases that they are most frequently caught by Coastal Command aircraft. These attacks on U-boats' also aim at relieving pressure on shipping in American waters. Needless to say, the Coastal Command works in the closest co-operation with the Admiralty.