FLEET SUPREME

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 133, 6 May 1940, Page 7

FLEET SUPREME

NAZIS’ SECRET FEAR. ALLIED REINFORCEMENT. UNPALATABLE FACT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received May 6, 9.40 a.m. RUGBY, May 5. Tlie fact disclosed by Mr Chamberlain last week that the destruction of a considerable, proportion of the German fleet off the Norwegian coast has enabled, the Allies to safely revert to the normal distribution of their navies in the Mediterranean is naturally unpalatable diet for German consumption. , It appears likely that it is a secret tear that sea power is still the dominating factor in war that inspires the present intense Nazi propaganda, which continues to declare that the British Fleet suffered severe losses at the hands of the German air. force, pr.oving, according to.an “official statement” published by the Trans-Ocean News Service, that “the supremacy of the fleet, however, strong, can be broken in the age of aerial warfare wherever the far-reaching hand of this new weapon hits with strength and lightning speed.” Disinterested observers will wonder how this contention can be reconciled with the reinforcement of the Allied fleet in the Mediterranean, especially if that account of its strength be as great as that stated by the TransOcean Service’s Athens correspondent, who says: “The Allied fleet concentration at Alexandria comprises the Second French Squadron and several British units, including three battleships. 1 ’ The correspondent also states: “Apart from the vessels already at Alexandria, seven light cruisers and four destroyer flotillas have been despatched to the Eastern Mediterranean.”

It will occur to them that if Germany’s repeated claims to have sunk or badly damaged one hundred and thirtv-six British naval units during the first phase of the Norwegian campaign are correct, it is impossible that the Mediterranean Fleet is able to be augmented to any appreciable degree.