NAVAL LOSSES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 164, 11 June 1940, Page 7

NAVAL LOSSES

OFFICIAL STATEMENT. -TWO DESTROYERS SUNK. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—-Copyright.) Received June 11, 9.10 a.m. LONDON, June 10. It is officially announced that His Majesty’s aircraft-carrier Glorious, also' the transport Orama, are presumed to be lost. The destroyers Acasta and Ardent are presumed to have been sunk and the tanker Oil Pioneer is presumed lost. These vessels were accompanying the Glorious. There were no troops aboard the Orama. The'Glorious was originally a cruiser completed in T 917. In 1930 she wag converted into an aircraft-caryier after the conversion of her sister ship Courageous, which was completed in 1928. It will be ■ remembered that the Courageous was sunk in September. The Glorious carried a normal complement of 1216. Of the seven aircraft-carriers in the Navy at the outbreak of the war the Glorious is the second to be lost. The destroyers Acasta and Ardent were completed in 1930 and were vessels of 1350 tons, armed with 4.7 in guns and eight torpedo tubes. The Orama/ (19,777. ton,s), was formerly an Oriental Steam Navigation Co. liner. She had visited the Dominion on pleasure cruises. CARINTHIA’S FATE. SURVIVOR’S ACCOUNT. ; LONDON, June 10. A warship has landed another 100 seamen from the Carinthia. , ’ A survivor declared that the submarine emerged after torpedoing the Carinthia, which opened fire, forcing the U-boat to submerge. Two warships arrived after eight hours and were later joined by a tug. TRAIL OF CHAOS. MORE R.A.F. BOMBINGS. TREMENDOUS DAMAGE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 9. Details contained in Air Ministry bulletins indicate that the R.A.F. has been intensely active during yesterday and last night. Enemy transport columns were scattered and flung into confusion, lines of tanks were heavily bombed, armoured care and motorlorries were reduced to twisted wreckage from direct hits, troops on the march were machine-gunned, anti-air-craft guns were attacked and silenced, and a petrol dump hidden in a wood was blown up when the British bombers ranged over the right wing of .the German onslaught in the region/of the Rivers Bresle and Somme, and a series of deep and shallow dive-bombing attacks spread destruction and chaos at many points behind the enemy line/ From nightfall till shortly before dawn to-day R.A.F. heavy bombers were almost continuously .... in action against military objectives in Germany and in the battle zone in Northern France. Just before midday columns of German motor • vehicles and troops were caught by British medium bom Iters on roads between Amiens and Aumale, and within a few minutes hundreds of bombs were falling on and about them. The raiders scored a direct hit on the head of a column of tanks and motor transport vehicles on the road. In the Hornoy region a stationary column of lorries wa6 bonibed and a direct hit was scored with a heavy bomb on a road and railway crossing. Near Hallivillers a line of a few tanks was heavily bombed, and lorries moving along a road near Paix were reduced to scrap iron, by direct hits. Troops and transport vehicles caught in the village of Pissy also came in for heavy attacks, bombs falling right in among them A <=alvo of bombs that was launched on a tightly packed column of armoured vehicles south-west 'of Quevauvillers straddled the objectives, and elsewhere in this region accurate bombing resulted in direct hits and casualties to motorised columns, both moving and stationary, on roads and in woods and villages. PETROL DUMP EXPLODES. Later in the evening another force of bombers carried out an attack on a petrol' dump in a wood north ol Abbeville. High explosives and nearly 100 incendiary bombs were dropped, and' with a tremendous roar the dump blew up. Enemy reinforcements moving up toward the line of the Somme'offensive were bombed and harassed by machine-gun fire, ammunition dumps were destroyed and lines of communication in many parts V the back areas were cut by low-level bombing attacks. Other sections of the raiding force, penetrating the German defences, attacked marshalling yards and railway junctions at key-points between Rhen-. ish Prussia and the Belgian frontier, setting goods wagons alight, blocking tunnels and disorganising rail traffic. BRIDGES WRECKED. Abbeville was heavily, attacked soon after dark by a section of heavy bombers, one of which scored two direct hits on the main railway bridge, completely ■ demolishing one .end of it. In a second raid on the town two hours later the main roads were hit with high explosive bombs, and one salvo, overshooting a bridge at which ft was aimed, apparently struck an ammunition store, for a terrific explosion lit up the town and violently rocked the aircraft above In an attack on St. Valery, eight miles west of Abbeville,' the railway and road bridge over the Somme estuary were repeatedly hit, and one salvo burst on top of an anti-aircraft .battery which was defending it. A' parachute flare was-dropped after.the attack.and it showed that the northern span o' 1 the bridge had completely collapsed. Bombs dropped on a column of heavv vehicles in a forest at Boulern struck an ammunition lorrv. ' which blew up and set the surrounding woods ablaze. A convov moving toward Bray on the Albert Road was repeatedly bombed from a low level, and a few minutes after a salvo had been dropped on moving lights in the Bois .de Cliimay, a series of explosions occurred as ammunition or petrol dumps went up in flames.