NAVAL OPERATIONS.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1918, Page 2

NAVAL OPERATIONS.

BRITAIN’S NAVY. ASTONI SUING FIGURES. [FKR raESS ASSOCIATION’. —COPYRIGHT.] LONDON, August 7. The Press Bureau states, affording an idea of tho activity of the British Navy, that between the declaration of war and 30th June last, the Allied newts involved n sea carriage of twenty millions of men, two million animals, a hundred and ten million tons of naval and military stores. The. total losses of men embarked, due to enemy action to the 30th of [April, reached the relatively tri\ ial figure of 3,282. The transportations of well over one million Americans to July 31st, involved the organisation of 51 British ocean escorts, 303 destroyer escorts, 4o American ocean escorts, and 335 destroyer | escorts.

* In the course, of such duties the British escorts steamed over a million and a quarter miles monthly. Patrol vessels engaged in frustrating submarine activities, voyaged at least six million miles monthly in home waters.

The evidence of the success of convoying is shown in the fact that British steamboats, exceeding 500 gross tons, to the from the United Kingdom, on the main oversea routes, whereof 93.8 per cent was convoyed between March tand June last, sustained submarine losses totalling 1.23 per cent, compared with 5.41 per cent- losses between April and Juno last year. Before conoying was established, the world’s merchant contraction for the quarter ended .Tune 30th, amounted to 1,243,274 gross tons, comprising 442,966 British and 800,30? Allied and neutral. This compares the world’s shipping output with 870,317 for the quarter ended March 31st. The world s output for the quarter ending June 30th, exceeded the losses from all causes by 296,696 gross tons.