MENACE TO SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1940, Page 5

MENACE TO SHIPPING

AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT’S STORY BRITAIN SAID TO BE FACING CRISIS. IN PRESENT CONDITIONS OF WAR AT SEA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.5 a.m.) NEW YORK, November 10. The American Press is seriously concerned over the menace to British shipping from German submarines, raiders and bombing aircraft. The correspondent in London of the “New York Times” has advised his paper: “The British are facing an unprecedented crisis at sea. The general prospect of the coming winter is much worse than in 1916. This, firstly, because the Germans are just beginning to take full advantage of their new submarine bases in France and Norway; secondly, because the British Admiralty has nothing like the number of destroyers and other craft it possessed in the last wav, while the vessels available have to do three times more work; thirdly, because the Allied merchant fleet, winch also has three times more work to do, is far below the standard of the Allied fleet of 1917; fourthly, because the technical development of the submarine, plus the co-operation of the German Air Force, in spotting for targets, has made the U-boat a much more efficient weapon.” The correspondent further points out that during the last war it was nothing for the Allies to use fifteen destroyers around a big convoy. “It is now admitted,” he states, “that convoys of sixty ships are sometimes spread over fifty miles of ocean and often are unaccompanied except for a couple of escorting craft. The British in 1918 had 527 destroyers compared with not more than 200 at present.” The correspondent ends his message: “The outlook is definitely bleak. British officials realise ;ts seriousness, but the people of Britain do not.”