WARFARE AT SEA WEEK OF DISASTER FOR GERMAN NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1939, Page 7

WARFARE AT SEA

WEEK OF DISASTER FOR GERMAN NAVY

Mr Winston Churchill Broadcasts MAGNIFICENT WORK DONE BY BRITISH SHIPS DENUNCIATION OF GERMAN OUTRAGES (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, December 18. Making' a broadcast speech, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Winston Churchill, characteristically swept the seas in a confident survey, in which he revealed that a considerable proportion of Germany’s naval strength had been put out of action in the past week. He said that, despite the mines surrounding Britain, the first division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, escorted by the main fleet, smoothly sailed into one of the British harbours yesterday. His broadcast coincided with the almost hysterical outburst and the unjustifiable claims made by Germany that the Nazi air force was supreme in large-scale attacks on British naval, patrols in the North Sea ami in the major air battle over Heligoland Bight. (Mr Churchill, scornfully referring to the Admiral Graf Spec’s disregard of tin* honourable course of fighting to the death revealed that the only ships awaiting her were the Ajax, the Achilles, and the eight-inch-gun ship Cumberland, which replaced the. Exeter. The Ajax had two of her four turrets knocked out. The Admiral Graf Spee knew that the Renown and Ark Royal were 1000 miles away when she sailed from Montevideo. • There was no harm in admitting that the Exeter bore up against 40 or 50 hits, of which many were from shells three times the weight of shells she could fire. Three of her eightinch guns were smashed, and she sustained nearly 100 casualties, mostly killed. Nevertheless, she remained guarding Montevideo till the Cumberland arrived. Mr Churchill paid a high tribute to the fighting of 11.M.5. Exeter, Ajax: and Achilles —to find any more brilliant or resolute than which it would be necessary,-he said, to go back a long way in naval history. Coming back from the South Atlantic Io the North Sea, Mr Churchill said the submarines of the Royal Navy had had the best week he could remember in tjiis or the last war.