OCEAN RAIDERS

Evening Star, Issue 23693, 28 September 1940, Page 6

OCEAN RAIDERS

RADIUS NOW CIRCUMSCRIBED DEVELOPMENT OF AIR RECONNAISSANCE The attack on the freighter Turakina in the Tasman Sea b.y an enemy surface raider has a local interest. ; for Australians, but actually it serves to emphasise the almost complete lack or German success in this form of maritime warfare (recently wrote the milltary correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald’). ' . , , t During the last war a myth was bml* up around German raiders, especially the Wolf and the Seeadler, in the latter instance owing to the persuasive publicity of Count von Luckner. The Wolf has a particular interest for Australians because she laid mines off Capo Howe and seized five of her victims near Australia. ff credit has to be given to enemy raiders, it should go, not to these two over-publicised voyages, but .to th» efforts of the Moewe, which, in the 15 months after January. 1916, sank .18 vessefls, all but five of them (British. She was easily .the most successful of the surface raiders, but the relative paucity of her results 1 shows how exaggerated this menace was. During the whole of the Great War, 6,604 ship* were destroyed by enemv action, totalling nearly 13,000,000 tons. Of these, only 191 vessels, or 562,900 tons, succumbed to surface raiders, whether armed merchantmen or navy vessels. In the present war the results hav» been still less impressive.. Most of the raiders’ successes were in the first few months of hostilities.. Their mam raiding efforts have been limited to th» two “ pocket ” battleships, neither, of which could be described as attaining a success proportionate to its speed ana armament. WIRELESS AND AEROPLANES. There are many reasons for this conspicuous inactivity- The very reasons that facilitated the operations of raiders in the last war have now been turned against them. As the Official History has pointed out, evasion of other ships is relatively easy if unfrequented waters are taken; and this is precisely what the present system of “ vanabi* courses ” amounts to. The tremendous development or wireless since 1914 also helps. The ease with which the Turakina reported its danger and thus warned the Navy and other shipping is a case in point, m 1914, on the contrary, very few merchant vessels had efficient wireless. Merchantmen are also made more independent by the increased rang f +l ''’ t ] I 'S|, is possible without refuelling, although it must he added that this equally aid* the raiders. Nowadays a motor shm can take on oil at the Canaries and sail to Sydney and back to the North African coast without refuelling. Lastly, there has been a marked development in air reconnaissance, i'hue naturally not operative m ?uch open waters as the South Atlantic, this is verv effective in relatively narrow stretches of sea such as coastal waters and even the. Tasman.