U-BOAT DANGER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1942, Page 4

U-BOAT DANGER

ENEMY’S REMAINING HOPE MUST BE TURNED INTO HIS FINAL DESPAIR. GENERAL SMUTS ON WAR OUTLOOK. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY. November 12. An earnest warning against the U-boat danger was pronounced by General Smuts when he reviewed the situation in Britain and the progress of the war on receiving the freedom of Plymouth, at South Africa House in London. General Smuts said he had held conferences with American. British, Dominion. and Allied leaders and questions of high policy and strategy had been discussed in all their bearings. "Everywhere I found the same earnest and determined spirit and alert outlook.” said the South African statesman. "There is brilliant leadership and fine national team work behind the leader. Soon the whole of North Africa will be in Allied hands. It is ’he most amazing transformation, in 'he shortest possible time, that we have seen in this war. The change ■has come sooner and more decisively than we had foreseen, and it may be only a beginning. Once you have the initiative you strain every nerve to keep it and to continue to pile on the agony until the enemy finally is overwhelmed. In Russia, in the East and in the Far East our defence lines seem everywhere to be holding firmly. He who holds the Mediterranean may hold the key to Europe. The African desert is no resting place. So far we have merely deprived the enemy of valuable bases, but they must now become bases for us from which to continue the offensive. If an offensive policy is resolutely followed, the African victory may vet become the prelude to the end. We have already wrested the air offensive from the enemy. “We have begun to wrest the land offensive from him. There remains the sea offensive,” General Smuts continued. “I mean the U-boa.t campaign, which remains the most serious menace against us. It is clear from Hitler’s last Munich speech that he builds his hopes for victory on the Üboat. On everything else he strikes a querulous, depressing and even despondent note. Germany is making an unheard of concentration of materials, manpower and engineering resources on the building and operation cf Übiat packs. They roans the seas in numbers, over distances and for endurance periods formerly thought impossible. In spite of all our efforts, the U-boat campaign is stilj on the increase. It evidently is the last hope , of the Germans, so also it should be cur first and foremost task to tackle.” “Let us,” General Smuts concluded, ' “turn the enemy's great hope into his ; final despair.” MUCH REDUCED • SUBMARINE DEPREDATIONS i IN ATLANTIC. (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) WASHINGTON, November 12. Enemy submarines sank only eleven merchantmen in the Western Atlantic in October, compared with the record high figure of 111 in June. The total since Pearl Harbour is now 520.