ALLIED SEA LOSSES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20107, 29 November 1939, Page 5

ALLIED SEA LOSSES

88 MERCHANT VESSELS COMPARISON WITH 1917 FIGURES MUCH LOWER (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. 27. The actual losses of British merchant ships in the week ended at midnight on November 25, amounted to 11 ships with a total tonnage of 25,787 tons. These included four fishing trawlers sunk by U-boats, which were unprotected arid in areas where immediate counter-action by anti-submarine forces is not to be expected. Four neutral ships were lost as a result of German action during Ihe week. The neutral nations’ loss was almost as great as the British. This was due to the loss of the Japanese liner Terukuni Maru and the Italian vessel Grazio by German mines, and also the Dutch liner Sliedrech, of 5135 tons, which was torpedoed without warning by a U-boat in the Atlantic on November 16. news of which was not received until the few survivors reached the shore this week.

From the beginning of the war until November 25, a period of about three months, 131 ships had been sunk by German action with a total tonnage of 483,9111. Of these, 78 were British. 10 French, and 43 neutral vessels.

A comparison with the losses suffered in April. 1917, when the submarine unrestricted sinking campaign

was at its height, shows that in one month 196 British ships were sunk and in all 430 ships were lost by German action.