FOUR HUNDRED WARSHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1942, Page 4

FOUR HUNDRED WARSHIPS

ADDED TO EMPIRE’S NAVIES SINCE WAR BEGAN.

More than 400 warships have been added to the naval fleets of the British Empire since the war began, it is disclosed in a new edition of Jane s Fighting Ships,” the acknowledged authority on all the navies of the world. Names are given of 9 battleships, 6 aircraft-carriers, 22 cruisers, 4 mine-layers, 62 destroyers, 22 submarines, 16 sloops, 119 corvettes and 179 other naval vessels which were not completed at the outbreak of war.. In addition to these, 72 destroyers, 7 submarines, 18 mine-sweepers, 61 corvettes and 37 trawlers have had their names published in connection with Warship Weeks in Britain’s National Savings Campaign. “Jane’s Fighting Ships” also calls attention to the surprising development of warship building in the British Dominions, especially Canada, where sloops, corvettes and minesweepers have been coming off the stocks in numbers undreamt of before the war. Several destroyers, it is recorded, are also in hand in Empire shipyards. No less impressive are the collated particulars of enemy losses. Since war began Germany has lost the battleship Bismarck, the armoured ship Admiral Graf Spee, the cruisers Blucher, Karlsruhe, ’ Koln, Konigsberg, Leipzig, 21 destroyers, 18 torpedoboats, nearly all the 70 submarines built before the war and about 80 other warships. , . Italy has lost the battleship Conte di Cavour, 11 cruisers, 27 destroyers, 14 toroedo-boats, 12 submarines and 27 other "vessels, while Japan’s losses up to the end of April included the battleship Haruna, 15 cruisers, 15 destroyers, 13 submarines, four seaplane carriers and seven other vessels.