SUCCESS OF CONVOYS

Southland Times, Issue 24831, 25 August 1942, Page 5

SUCCESS OF CONVOYS

Low Percentage Of Losses (8.0.W.) RUGBY, August 23. The disclosure by the United States Navy Department that only five ships have been sunk from 2000 escorted in convoys along the American Atlantic coast since May 14 is noted with the greatest interest in London. The British Navy has proved during the past three years that the escorted convoy system is the answer to the U-boats, just as it was in the last war, even though the Germans are now attacking from the whole of the Atlantic coast from Narvik to Biarritz. In this war out of more than 100,000 ships escorted up to last February fewer than one-half of one per cent, have been lost. By June 1941 the Germans had claimed about 13,000,000 tons of shipping sunk. The true figure was 7,145,000 tons. Since then the Admiralty has not published losses. The rate of merchant shipbuilding in this war is much greater than in the last war. The British Empire output in 1941 was reliably estimated at about 2,500,000 tons. American launchings during the year are now expected considerably to exceed 5,000,000 tons gross. In July America launched 71 ships. By the end of the year the figure will exceed 90 a month, while in 1943 the United States’ estimates that it will build some 15,000,000 tons dead-weight. Up to July 15 of this year British naval and air forces in the North Sea and the English Channel had sunk over 1,000,000 tons of enemy shipping. No fewer than 223 supply ships had been sunk or captured and 135 ships, including warships severely damaged. The majority of the successful attacks were made off the Dutch coast. The second best area was the coast of Norway.