TURNING POINT?

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20877, 1 September 1942, Page 3

TURNING POINT?

ATLANTIC BATTLE SHIP LOSSES HALVED TOLL DURING AUGUST (Bv Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK. Aug. 31. The New York Herald-Tribune's correspondent in Washington says that the turning point has apparently been reached in the Bailie of the Atlantic. The official list of ship sinkings by Axis submarines in the western Atlantic. Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea which the Navy Department published for August, shows a drop of 50 per cent compared with the previous three months. The Navy Department reports that only 31 United Nations ships were torpedoed in August. This total compares with (18 torpedoed in July, 78 in June, and (11 in May. The Navy Department is reticent about boasting of this achievement, partly because in the past statements by the Secretary of the Navy, Colonel F. Knox, and others asserting that the U-boat menace had been conquered were invariably followed by a new and bigger wave of sinkings. The reductions may be clue to a seasonal slump, since the long summer nights are unfavourable for submarine operations, and it is also possible that the Nazis are transferring submarines to-‘other war theatres. At any rate, the Navy Department authorities view the submarine situation with relative optimism and consider the convoy system is now controlling the U-boat menace. The Navy Department announced that a United States merchantman was recently torpedoed in the Caribbean Sea, but navy gunners drove off the attacking submarine and saved their vessel.

A torpedo explosion killed two seamen. but failed to sink the ship. Twelve hours later a Canadian naval vessel appeared and towed the damaged ship to port. The Navy Department also revealed the loss of a medium-sized British merchantman through submarine action in the Caribbean Sea during the middle of August.