GERMANY’S MAGNETIC MINE CAMPAIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1939, Page 5

GERMANY’S MAGNETIC MINE CAMPAIGN

Allied Naval Staffs Working on Problem LIMITS ON ENEMY USE OF PLANES & U-BOATS FIVE GERMAN MERCHANTMEN ACCOUNTED FOR IN TWO DAYS (British Official Wireless.) RCGBY, November 25. While official circles are naturally reticent in the face of the intensification of the German war at sea against Allied and neutral shipping and commerce in the form of indiscriminate laying of unannounced mines in shipping approaches to Lnited Kingdom ports, the use of the so-called. magnetic mines and of aircraft for sowing mines by parachute, the naval correspondents of the newspapers and other independent authorities on naval matters show no serious concern at the developments, which they consider unlikely to have taken the Allied naval staffs entirely by surprise. There is no disposition to deny that the past week has been a bad one in the toll taken of many neutral, and. Allied ships, but the enemy losses are understood to have been, heavy, too. Several enemy submarines are known to have, been sunk by the British and French fleets and agency reports reached Loi'idon today of the destruction of a German minelayer with considerable loss of life. There is also information to the effect that five German merchantmen have been accounted for in the last two days. Of these three are reported to have been captured by Allied naval units in the South Atlantic and another, the Adolph Woermann (8557 tons) was scuttled by her crew to avoid capture. So far as the use of aeroplanes and submarines for minescattering is concerned, it is pointed out that the aeroplane can only carry a very limited number of mines at an extravagant use of petrol, while it is subject to easier detection than a submarine, so that the danger area is known and can be swept. There is a. serious limitation also to the use of the submarine, since she cannot return to the danger area without the risk of becoming a loss. In view of the unsuitability of submarines for this task, their use for indiscriminate mine-sowing by the Germans is regarded by some naval critics here as an admission of the complete failure of the original campaign, which required the direction of torpedoes or gunfire against pa rtic u 1 a r objectives.