SMASHING BLOWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1941, Page 5

SMASHING BLOWS

BRITISH NAVAL AND AIR SUCCESSES ATTACKS ON AXIS SEA POWER IN MEDITERRANEAN. DESTROYER SUNK & CRUISER BADLY DAMAGED. LONDON. September 5. More smashing blows against Axis sea power in the Mediterranean have been made by British naval and air forces. During the past few days 30,000 tons of enemy shipping have been sent to the bottom of the sea. A British submarine torpedoed and sank a destroyer and a large merchant ship off Tripoli. Another submarine sank two supply ships and damaged a third. It is almost certain that a 23,000-ton Italian liner has been sunk. A loaded tanker was sent to the bottom of the sea and a supply ship severely damaged off Sicily. Another supply ship of 8,000 tons was torpedoed and sunk. A 10,000-ton Italian cruiser was torpedoed and severely damaged by a British submarine in the central Mediterranean. The cruiser was attacked between the toe of Italy and Sicily. The Germans and Italians are making desperate efforts to keep up a ferry service between Italy and Northern France. The Fleet Air Arm machine-gunned two enemy aerodromes on Sicily. Two enemy planes were set on fire and others damaged. The R.A.F. destroyed nine enemy aircraft attempting to raid Malta. In Cyrenaica the South African Air Force bombed enemy stores and the Fleet Air Arm and fighter planes attacked German tanks and transports. Two fighters are missing.

23,000 TON LINER ALMOST CERTAINLY SUNK. ADMIRALTY GIVES DETAILS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.7 a.m.) RUGBY, September 5. A large southbound liner has been torpedoed and almost certainly sunk by a British submarine off the coast of Italy, states an Admiralty communique,'which adds: “This«ship is possibly the Duilio, of 23,636 tons. When attacked she was in company with two other large passenger ships. Italian liners of this type are known to have been acting as troop transports. Laden southbound a tanker has been (torpedoed and sunk, from another 'enemy convoy off Sicily. An Italian supply ship, the Squitania, of 4971 tons, in the same convoy was hit by a torpedo and severely damaged. A supply j ship, of about 8000 tons, also has been torpedoed and sunk by one of our submarines in the central Mediterranean.”