DEADLY ACCURACY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 December 1939, Page 7

DEADLY ACCURACY

AIR FORCE BOMB ATTACKS j THREE U-BOATS DESTROYED j WITHIN 24 HOURS. DAMAGED DESTROYER AVENGED. By Teiegraph—Press Association —Copyright. LONDON. December 9. The deadly accuracy of the Royal Air Force in dealing with U-boats was illustrated by the sinking of a U-boat by a coastal command aeroplane in or near the Arctic Seas. The submarine met its doom with the first bomb dropped but as it was frantically attempting to submerge the pilot gave a second salvo dead on the target, assuring its complete destruction. The Air Ministry announced that a coastal command aeroplane attacked a second German submarine while submerging. Patches of oil appeared after bombs were dropped. Two destroyers later released depth charges. A third U-boat was also sunk. It is reported to be the one which attacked H.M.S. Jersey. All three were, destroyed within 24 hours. REPLACEMENT RATE UNLIKELY TO EQUAL LOSSES. DIFFICULTIES OF GERMAN ’ INDUSTRY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. December 9. Students of naval warfare here do not believe that Germany is likely to be able to replace her submarines—quite apart from finding crews for them, which may prove very difficult—more rapidly than she is losing them at the present rate of destruction by the Allied naval forces. Naturally no close estimate is possible ol' the present or future U-boat output, but the figures which are available of the commissionings of German submarines in the last war have thrown an important light on the problem. In 1917. at the height-of the submarine campaign, commissionings averaged seven a month, the highest number produced in any one month being thirteen. Recently the "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" claimed that the 1917 output could be greatly exceeded, and suggested the figure of one submarine a day—a very astonishing increase on the 1917 figure, as will be noted. There is, indeed, reason to doubt if German industry today is capable of even reaching the 1917 rate, having regard to the shortage of essential materials and the absorption of labour in the uneconomical production ol substitute materials.