OUR BALTIC RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1916, Page 7

OUR BALTIC RECORD.

HEAVY TOLL IN FIVE WEEKS' OPERATIONS. The naval correspondent of the Daily News, writing under date November 9 says:— It is only five, weeks since our submarines settled down to business in the Baltic, and in that period they have not only sunk two, or possibly four, enemy warships, hut have inflicted relatively far more damage on the remains of the German sea-borne commerce than we have suffered in nearly eight months of the "submarine blockade."

The following is the record of Ger man merchant ships captured or de< stroyed by our vessels since the begin ning of October.

October 3. —Svanen. October 8. —A transport shelled and sunk. October 9.—Lulea. October 10.—Transport torpedoed and sunk, Eutrune. October 11.—Nicomedia, Tyrgos, and Etngard. October 12.—Walter Leonhardt. October 13. —Rippenhaven. Octob.'r 15.—Gertrud. October 18.—Pernambuco, Soderham, Johannes Russ, and Dalalsven. October 20.—John Wuls, Hernosand, and Fried Arp. October 23.—Eleetra, Rendsburg, and Glaven. November 2.—Suomi and Gedana. November 3. —Franz Karl and another (unnamed) captured. On October 28 it was officially reported in the Russian communique that four ships had been sunk by British submarines, and on October 10 tbat five enemy transports had been sunk and one driven ashore by them. It is not known whether all or any of these are included among those named above. Besides the work of our own submarines the Russian Fleet has not been idle, and several victims, either sunk or captured, are officially reported to have fallen to a cruiser and to the submarines Alligator and Kaiman. The warships sunk by our submarines in the Baltic are:— July 2.—Pomraern, battleship, 13,040 tons. October 23—Prinz Adalbert, armoured cruiser, 8856 tons. November 7.—Undine, light cruiser, 2050 tons. In January the small cruiser Gazelle I was put permanently out of action, it is believed by a British submarine, and on October 14 another of our craft was unofficially reported to have sunk a torpedo boat and a destroyer. On the following day another German destroyer was sunk in collision with a ferry boat, and a mine patrol vessel was blown up and destroyed. It will be remembered that survivors of the Prim Adalbert said they saw two torpedoes cutting the water side by side, and from this it was .assumed in Germany that the British submarine "was equipped with the new double torpedo tube system which the latest English models are said to carry." It is reported now that the Undine was also struck by two torpedoes.