SEA POWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1940, Page 5

SEA POWER

LOSSES AND ADDITIONS TO BRITISH NAVY BALANCE IN FAVOUR OF ALLIES. FAR GREATER THAN AT OUTBREAK OF WAR. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. LONDON, June 8. The Admiralty states that during the next few months the Royal Navy will receive a further large increase in strength, comprising every category of warship from hattlcshijis to motor torpedoboats and also a very large number of auxiliary aircraft. The balance of naval strength in favour of the Allies is now far greater than at the outbreak of wait

The strength at the outbreak of the war was 15 capital ships, seven air-craft-carriers, 62 cruisers, 185 destroyers, 58 submarines, and 108 minesweepers, sloops, patrol vessels, and gunboats. All British losses have been and will be announced without delay. The losses to date are one capital ship, one aircraft-carrier, two cruisers, twentydestroyers, eight submarines, and six of the minesweeping, sloop and patrol vessel types. The Navy has been strengthened by more than. 50 armed merchant cruisers, of which one has been lost (the communique was presumably issued before the loss of the Carinthia was announced), and by more than 1500 minor auxiliary craft, of which 58 have been lost.

The French navy, already very powerful, is rapidly growing, and the Allied fleets have been reinforced by the active co-operation of Polish, Norwegian, and Dutch naval forces. The acceleration of work in the naval shipyards is progressively increasing. Nearly a million tons of warships are building in British shipyards. The contrast between the German naval weakness and the Allies’ great and growing strength has apparently alarmed the German High Command, as is shown by its efforts to convince neutral opinion that German air power has achieved a spectacular ascendancy over British naval power. Nine months of war experience enable a balance to be struck. Concentrated air power in close proximity to its own aerodromes can inflict losses on less strongly armoured naval units. However, it has signally failed to annul the decisive advantages conferred by sea power. A recent striking example was the successful withdrawal of the Allied armies from Flanders.