NAVAL STRENGTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1942, Page 3

NAVAL STRENGTH

ADDITIONS TO THE BRITISH FLEET LOSSES MUCH MORE THAN REPLACED. CAPITAL SHIPS AND OTHER CRAFT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) RUGBY, September 21. From the statement at Sheffield, of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr A. V. Alexander, that all British capital ships, aircraft-carriers and cruisers lost during the last two and a quarter years have been replaced, it is deduced that two new battleships, the Anson and Howe, have joined the active fleet. Both are 35,000 ton ships, similar to the King George V, mounting the new fourteen-inch guns as their main armament. All five ships in this class have now been delivered, but the Prince of Wales was lost in action (in Malaya). The replacement of the four aircraftcarriers lost in the same period is taken as meaning that the four vessels of the Illustrious class have been completed. Besides the Illustrious they are the Victorious, Formidable and Indomitable. The replacement of 22 lost cruisers, says one expert, means that the shipyards have delivered five begun since the outbreak of war in addition to seventeen under construction in 1939. Lost destroyers, says the “Manchester Guardian” actually have been replaced twice over, as the number known to have been added is 160 io last spring, and losses have been about eighty The'“Dailv Herald” states that, with the fifty destroyers obtained from the United States in 1940, the total number of new destroyers is about 200. The number of corvettes at sea, all built since the outbreak of war, is also estimated at about 200.