STRAIN ON SUBMARINES

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20918, 25 September 1939, Page 8

STRAIN ON SUBMARINES

SAPS MORALE OF YOUNG CREWS “EVERY MAN’S HAND AGAINST YOU” HUNTED AND DETECTED BY ROYAL NAVY (Official Wireless) (Received Sept. 25, 11.0 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 24 Twenty-eight days at sea, haunted all the time by the knowledge that every man's hand as well as the sea itself is against you—that is to-day the situation of German U-boats on the trade routes of the Atlantic, stated an evening bulletin by the Ministry of Information. Twenty-eight days of ceaseless strain in cramped quarters must tend to sap the morale of young submarine crews. The available resources of the trained German submarine personnel are limited. The strain on the U-boats’ crews must have Keen great, for the German submarine warfare has been answered in no uncertain terms by the antisubmarine craft of the Royal Navy. The moral effect of depth charges on U-boat crews is intensified by the knowledge, from bitter experience, that the Royal Navy can detect and hunt them with an efficiency never dreamt of in the last war. It is when a submarine—with the thought of vital supplies of torpedoes, fuel, food and fresh water —tries to get home that the vitality of her crew is at its lowest. It is then that the U-boat faces its greatest ordeal. Not only does the Royal Navy harass the U-boats on their hunting grounds on the ocean trade routes, but it is busily engaged in closing the routes to their “bolt holes.” The operations of our patrols make the entrances to the North Sea exceedingly hazardous to enemy submarines, while the passage homewards, once in the North Sea, is made more dangerous by our patrolling surface vessels and aircraft.