NOTABLE WEEK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1940, Page 5

NOTABLE WEEK

ONLY TWO BRITISH SHIPS LOST FOUR GERMAN VESSELS SCUTTLED. ADMIRALTY STRIKES BALANCE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, March 5. The Admiralty states that the week ended on Sunday was an exceptional one for the Navy. The British steamers Albano and Calo (which were believed Io have been mined) were the only losses, namely, a total of 1886 tons. On the other hand four German ships were scuttled—the Wolfsburg, Heidelberg, Troja and Arucas —totalling 18,490 tons. Out of six German ships attempting to run the blockade in the last fortnight only one has got home. The Admiralty announces that the Arucas was carrying a valuable cargo of mercury. She was the last of six German ships to break out of Vigo (Spain) a fortnight ago. Of these the British and French Navies captured three ships and another was wrecked north of the Norwegian territorial corridor.

The Wolfsburg radioed an SOS from the north-west of Iceland. The message then blurred and faded out. The Arucas radioed that she was sinking rapidly south-west of Hornafjord (Norway), and then said she no longer needed help.

Britain lost from the enormous total of her sea-going ships barely one-tenth of the loss inflicted, or rather self-in-flicted, on the few fugitive Germans venturing to ply the seas.

Moreover, of 10,782 British. Allied and neutral vessels which were safely escorted to their destinations by convoy in the six months of the war, only 25 have been lost, and among the 1075 neutral ships convoyed only two have been lost. The current rate, therefore, is 430 to one against a British ship being sunk, and 537 to one against a neutral vessel being sunk. It is no wonder neutrals increasingly desire to join the British convoys. They are at present welcomed even when they are not trading to the United Kingdom.