U-BOAT’S FATE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 287, 5 December 1939, Page 7

U-BOAT’S FATE

STALKED BY PLANE DESTROYED BY SINGLE BOMB DIRECT HIT SCORED I British Official Wheluss J Received Dec. 4. 9.5 p.m, RUGBY, Dec. 3. Tlie Air Ministry has announced that a coastal reconnaissance plane, while on patrol over th 6 North Sea this morning, attacZsed and destroyed with bombs an enemy submarine on the surface. A direct hit was obtained on the base of the conning tower. When 150 miles from land, the pilot 'sighted a minute object on the horizon eight miles distant. With his binocu--1 lars he was able to satisfy himself that it was an enemy submarine, apparently of a large, ocean-going type. So that he might approach unobserved, the pilot climbed into a cloud bank and stalked his quarry from there. When the U-boat crew heard the engines of aircraft above them they made frantic efforts to close the conning tower hatch and make a crash dive, but it was too late. The pilot swooped down towards his target and released a bomb before the submarine could fully submerge. A direct hit was scored, the bomb exploding on the base of the U-boat’s conning tower. Parts of the submarine and other wreckage were thrown high by the explosion, and the sea surface became coated with oil over a large area. The aircraft remained over the position for live minutes to look for survivors, but nons was seen. When the aircraft left the scene, a Jong oval patch of bubbling, foaming water covered the spot where the submarine , had been. Two members of the War Cabinet, I Sir Samuel Hoare and Sir Maurice Hankey, were visiting the operations room of the coastal command headquarters when wireless messages announcing the destruction of the submarine were received from tiie aircraft. U-BOAT CAPTURED IN CHANNEL ENTIRE CREW INTERNED Received Dec. 4, IYS p.m. LONDON, Dec. 4. A U-boat was captured in the , Bristol Channel a few days ago and the entire crew has been landed and interned. ONLY SMALL LOSS OF WARSHIPS I NAVY KEEPING SEAS CLEAR GERMAN MERCHANT SHIPS SUFFER HEAVILY [ British Official Wireless. 1 RUGBY, Dec. 3. I It is authoritatively stated in Lon- 1 don that in the three months of the war the British Navy has enabled nearly 21,000,000 gross tons of British i shipping to keep the seas with the loss of just 4 per cent, of the total naval tonnage in actual losses or disablements. ■ The British Navy, at the beginning of the war, totalled .1,500,000 tons of j ships, reckoning on a displacement : basis, comprising x aM types of battle- : ships cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. To this must be added an unspecified amount of commissioned I tonnage for Navy purposes, which is | not inconsiderable because of the total number of big passenger liners and [ other suitable craft which Britain pos- j sesses. ■» Germany has only put out of ac-1 tion through sinking about 53,000 tons' of warships, and the most important • units in this group were upward of. a quarter of a century old. Nor do i these figures make allowance for de-1 liveries from one of the most exten- ! sive building programmes the world I has ever seen. Captures From Germany | On the other hand it is officially j stated in London that the total German merchant vessels captured or s sunk since the outbreak of the war is 34 ships of 145,301 tons Sixteen vessels were captured by the British with a tonnage of 59,754 and by the French three ships with a tonnage of 16,122, Sixteen vessels have been sunk or scuttled with a tonnage of 79,000.