Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1940. THE NAVY HOLDS ITS FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 93, 16 October 1940, Page 8

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1940. THE NAVY HOLDS ITS FIRE

The British Admiralty has a way* in keeping with the tradition of the "Silent Service," of withholding information until it has collated all reports and made sure of its facts. In the process—which may take time —it ignores enemy communiques and claims issued earlier and so apt by anticipation to gain a certain amount of credence among people susceptible to propaganda. Thus, when an Italian communique, published on Monday, claimed that Italian torpedo boats had sunk a British cruiser in the Mediterranean |and there was no response yesterday from the British authorities, the "doubting Thomases" were beginning to ask if the Italian story might not be true. Today the Admiralty, in its own good time, comes out with the true story with the effect of a broadside after holding fire. There ivas a naval engagement in the Mediterranean. The Ajax, which, with the Achilles and the Exeter, settled the fate of the Graf Spec at the River Plate, in the course, of one of the Navy's Mediterranean "sweeps," came across, at 2 a.m. on October 12, three Italian destroyers and sank two. Soon after this another Italian squadron, including one heavy cruiser, hove up, and the Ajax, engaging again, crippled one of the accompanying destroyers. At dawn this was located from the air in tow of another destroyer, which, on the arrival of the Ajax, slipped the cable and made off under a smoke screen for Sicily. Then H.M.S. York came up and the crew of the crippled destroyer began to abandon ship. The two British cruisers waited half an hour for the crew to get away and then sank the destroyer. The experience of H.M.S. Sydney with the Bartolomeo Colleone, sunk on July 19, when Italian aircraft attacked the British sailors while they were trying to rescue the Colleone's crew, could not be repeated here, but a wireless message was broadcast by the British cruisers giving the position of the survivors so that they could be picked up, being not far from Sicily. Thus the Navy kept up again its tradition of avoiding wanton sacrifice.

The Ajax suffered little damage and few casualties. Incidentally the Admiralty communique gives information about other successful operations of the Fleet and the Air Arm in the Mediterranean. Four Italian planes were shot down while trying to bomb a British squadron, which suffered no damage or casualties. British submarines sank several Italian ships at different places, two near Genoa, one off Naples, and a fourth near Benghazi. Naval units, working in with the R.A.F., bombarded enemy troop concentrations at Sidi Barrani, the advance post of the Italian force designed for the invasion of Egypt. At the same time the R.A.F. inflicted heavy damage to military objectives in Eritrea. Thus, Britain is keeping the upper hand in all elements —sea, air, and land —in this theatre of the war. All this must be very disheartening to the Italians and may well supply a reason for calling on Germany to furnish help by an attack through the Balkans. Whatever progress the enemy may make in this direction, the Navy will be ready for them when they approach the sea.