U-BOAT ACES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1941, Page 6

U-BOAT ACES

ONE DEAD & ANOTHER CAPTURED ANNOUNCEMENT BY FIRST LORD. INCREASING TOLL TAKEN OF RAIDERS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, T 1.40 a.m.) RUGBY, April 20. Speaking at Tottenham on the Battle of the Atlantic, the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr A. V. Alexander) announced the destruction of a U-boat with its commander, a famous German “ace.” Mr Alexander had previously assured his hearers that neither the U-boats nor German long-range aircraft were having it all their own way.

“We can continue,” he said, “to take toll of both, and as the strength of the co-operation of the Coastal Command of the R.A.F. increases, and the number ’of escorting destroyers and corvettes expands, that toll will increase, until the battle is won.” He continued: “About a fortnight ago, we were able to announce that Otto Kretchmer, captain of U-Boat 99, was a prisoner of war in our hands and his U-boat destroyed. Kretchmer was idolised in Germany as the ‘Wolf of the Atlantic.’ He had the largest record of destruction of any U-boat captain. “This afternoon I can tell you that another German U-boat ace has ceased to operate against our shipping. Captain Schepke, of U-boat 100, is dead, and his U-boat gone to join U-boat 99 and many others which lie on the floor of the Atlantic. He, too, was regarded by Germany as an ace. Both Schepke and Kretchmer had been decorated by Hitler with the Oak Leaves—the highest decoration which Germany bestows on her underwater pirates. There are only three German captains who have held this decoration and now you know that two of them are out of commission. I think the way in which these men 'were idolised in Germany shows to what a great extent the German U-boat service depended on the efforts of a very few aces, and there is cause for gratification, though without boasting. in the removal from the trade routes of scourges of this sort. Early this year the German Press reported that Schepke and other German officers had addressed many meetings of Germans for recruits for the U-boat service. We published the other day that now we had many hundreds of U-boat prisoners, but many more lie at the bottom of the ocean.”