SHIPPING LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 February 1940, Page 5

SHIPPING LOSSES

LAST WEEK’S BELOW AVERAGE ADMIRALTY STATEMENT. CAPTURED AND SCUTTLED GERMAN SHIPS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, February 27. The Admiralty announces that losses, as the result of enemy action, for the week ending on Sunday were: —Four British ships, .of a tonnage of 17,778, and three neutrals of a tonnage of 8,850. Of the total losses, 18,176 tons were due to submarines. There has been only one sinking since, the morning of February 22 due to a submarine. The average weekly loss since the outbreak of war has been thirteen ships, of 43,700 tons, so that last week’s sinkings are well below the average. It appears that the burst of U-boat activity of the previous week has spent itself.

Some 225 neutral ships were convoyed during the week without loss. Up to February 21 twenty-one convoyed ships had been lost out of 10,076 British and neutral ships escorted to their destinations.

A British warship captured the German steamer Wahehe and took her to a British port, after preventing the crew’s attempt to scuttle the vessel. The Nazis have now lost twenty-five vessels, aggregating 98,290 tons, by capture and twenty-eight, totalling 152,891 tons, mostly by scuttling.