FEAR OF ALLIES’ SEA POWER

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 189, 7 May 1940, Page 7

FEAR OF ALLIES’ SEA POWER

Indication In Berlin STRENGTH OF FLEET IN MEDITERRANEAN (British Oflicial Wireless.) RUGBY, May 5. The fact disclosed by Mr. Chamberlain last week that destruction of a considerable proportion of the German fleet off the Norwegian coast has enabled the Allies, safely to revert to the normal distribution of the navies in the Mediterranean is naturally unpalatable diet for German consumption. It appears likely that it is • the secret fear that sea power is still. the dominating factor in war that inspires the present intense Nazi propaganda which continues to declare that the British Fleet has suffered severe losses at the hands of the German air force, proving, according to an “official statement,” published by Transocean news service, that “the supremacy of the fleet, however strong, can be broken in the age of aerial warfare 'wherever the far-reaching hand of this new weapon hits with strength and lightning speed.” Disinterested observers will wonder how this contention can be reconciled with the reinforcement of the Allied Fleet in the Mediterranean, especially if its strength is as great as that stated by the Athens correspondent of the Transocean agency, who says “the concentration of the Allied Filet at Alexandria comprises the second French squadron and several British units, including three battleships.” The correspondent also states: “Apart from the vessels already at Alexandria, seven light cruisers and four destroyer flotillas have been dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean.” It will occur to them that if Germany’s repeated claims to have sunk or badly damaged 136 British naval units during the first phase of the Norwegian campaign are correct, it is impossible that the Mediterranean Fleet should be able to be augmented to any appreciable degree.

STILL FURTHER CLAIMS LONDON, May 5. An Admiralty communique states: “The German claim to have* sunk a British battleship and a cruiser of the York class in operations off Namsos is untrue.” A German High Command communique enlarges on the previous fantastic claims of British losses and says that German destroyers have sunk 23 zlllied submarines and 2,300,000 tons of Allied shipping since the outbreak of the war.