SWIFT ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1939, Page 8

SWIFT ACTION

DEVELOPMENT OF CONVOY SYSTEM EXPERIENCE OF LAST WAR TURNED TO ACCOUNT. GREAT ACHIEVEMENT BY NAVY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) RUGBY, September 29. The speed with which the Navy acted in instituting' the convoy system can be appreciated from facts made public today. By September 7 — only four days after the outbreak of war—outward convoys were already running. The arrangement of convoys for homecoming merchantmen naturally took somewhat longer, but the first convoy was operating in the homeward direction a week later After just under a month at war, Britain has got into operation a convoy system which compares in extent very favourably with the ultimate effort achieved in 1918, and the Navy has made full use of the experience gained during the last war. During the present lull in U-boat activities, the convoy system is being improved and will soon get fully into its stride. It will protect merchantmen, not only from U-boats, but against air attack or raids by any armed ships Germany might get on the high seas. The Navy showed foresight in other directions by providing before hostilities started defence courses for officers and men of the Merchant Navy. The Navy has already attained a position comparable to the one it found itself in nearly three years after the start of the last war. '