WAR ON SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 March 1941, Page 5

WAR ON SHIPPING

OPERATIONS OF NAZI U=BOATS FIGURES OF REPORTED STRENGTH A CORRESPONDENT’S SURVEY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 21. According to the well-informed correspondent of the “Yorkshire Post,” Germany has. between 140 and 170 submarines working on a dual plan, under which 70 are at sea and 70 in reserve. The U-boats work in three groups. The ocean submarines travel well across the Atlantic, the medium range boats go midway and the smaller craft stay about the coast of Britain. The correspondent adds: “Nothing that has happened indicates that the campaign is being run as more than a haphazard attack. It will take heavy toll and continue to be a menace, but every submarine destroyed means eight months to build another and train its crew. On a normal reckoning, the danger mark should have passed when 50 U-boats have been destroyed. A 8.8. C. broadcast states that the German battle-cruisers which were stated recently by Mr. Churchill to have operated in the Atlantic as far west as the 42nd meridian, two-thirds of the way towards America, are the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, vessels of 26,000 tons and the most powerful units of the German fleet.