U.S. TASK FORCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 228, 28 September 1942, Page 2

U.S. TASK FORCE

WAR ON U-BOATS “We got the U-boat menace down in the last war, and I think we can do it again. Anyway, we shall have a darned good crack at it,” said the bluff, smiling Rear-Admiral Robert Carlisle Giffen, commander of the United States task force operating with the British Home Fleet, in a special interview. Admiral Giffen, who is sturdy and of medium height, said that the task force was operating, as United States ships did in 1917-18, under the Admiralty, under the direct command of Admiral Sir John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, who was one of the finest officers he had met. The task force worked under the orders and traditions of the British Navy, leavenea by American methods. The vessels in the force had worked continuously for five months, and had not sighted an enemy surface craft, but had beaten off aircraft attacks undamaged. Some of its sailors would soon be in London on leave, which was the first they had had for a year. Their morale was excellent. Their average age was 21 to 22 years, and mostly they were former high school boys. “The kids love their job," he added. “They get on well with the British sailors.”