MINESWEEPING WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 91, 26 June 1946, Page 2

MINESWEEPING WAR

ROYAL NAVY’S TASK FISHING GROUNDS CLEARED The Royal Navy’s twelfth minesweeping flotilla has returned from a Mediterranean station claiming a record number of mines cleared. During their three years’ operational duties, which included sweeping before the Allied invasion forces entered North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio, they destroyed 2395 mines and 320 obstructors. Post-war mine clearance in European waters is controlled by the International Mine Clearance Committee, consisting of representatives of Britain, the United States of America, Russia and France, and under this committee waters are divided into four European zones, each to be cleared by its Zone Board. The responsibility of clearance of a zone, wherever possible, is' allocated to bordering countries, largely aided by British vessels sometimes in a supervisory capacity, os in West German waters where 11 British minesweepers supervised 68 German ones. In fact, the bulk of the forces employed are British and German, and this in spite of Britain’s big minesweeping commitments in other parts of the world. In the Mediterranean, there are nearly 60 British sweepers and over 70 French, Greek, Yugoslav and Italian vessels. Sixty-one Royal Navy craft and 15 Royal Indian Navy, with sweepers of the Royal Netherlands Navy, are sweeping the East Indian Seas, and 16 Royal Navy craft are sweeping Far Eastern and Hongkong waters. At the outbreak of war t*he minesweeping service of the Royal Navy consisted of about 36 fleet minesweepers and 40 trawlers. In December, 1945, there were over 350 ships, from fleet minesweepers to minesweeping motor launches, in operation, and 5000 British officers and 30,000 ratings. By the end of March this year, steady demobilisation had decreased the number to 18,500 officers and men. No man’s release may be deferred simply because he is engaged in minesweeping. Thus, the British Navy is covering thousands of miles of sea, from the tropics to the Arctic nearly, on this dangerous operation of making sea routes and fishing grounds of the world safe again for traffic. It is estimated that the task will be accomplished by the end of 1947. The home waters be clear by July o£ this year and the large task of clearing Europe’s waterways should be pompleted later, during the summer. From the outbreak of war tp March of this year over 23,400 enemy mines were destroyed in European waters, plus 7625 from defensive fields around Britain.