BETTER NEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1943, Page 3

BETTER NEWS

OF WAR ON U=BOATS GIVEN BY FIRST LORD ALLIED HUNTING FORCES STRENGTHENED. TONNAGE LOSSES MUCH REDUCED. LONDON, March 3. There is better news of the Avar at sea. It comes from the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Alexander. He described the results of Allied attacks on U-boats during the .past four months as the most encouraging of the war. Last month they reached a new peak. Mr Alexander said there was a tremendous improvement in anti-subma-rine weapons, by the use of a bigger and better type of corvette, known as a frigate. Altogether there were over 200 of these frigates in use and many of these fast new U-boat hunters were coming off the stocks in Britain, the United States and Canada. The Germans, said Mr Alexander, were stil probably building more Üboats than were being sunk, but the gap was being cut down. Britain’s tonnage losses were much less during the past three months than those during the same period last winter. Since the beginning of the war, he said, British shipyards at home and overseas had turned out more than 900 warships and the output of merchant ships was showing a growing increase over losses. s YEAR OF ACHIEVEMENT MR ALEXANDER’S IMPRESSIVE SURVEY. OPERATIONS IN ALL SEAS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, March 3. Reviewing the main developments of the U-boat campaign during the last twelve months, Mr Alexander said the position seemed to be under control in the last half of 1941, but was changed overnight by Japan’s entry into the war, which added two great oceans ’ to the areas where shipping was menaced by submarines and air attack. Part of the escort ships had to be withdrawn for these new theatres, and during the first half of last year sinkings on the eastern seaboard of America, by U-boats operating from European bases, had been a grievous drain on available Allied tonnage. At times the losses in that area were threequarters of the total. With the adoption of the convoy system, losses in that area began to fall, and now they represented only a small part of the whole. The Royal Navy had helped the United States Navy in that area and experienced Coastal Command pilots, with their planes, had also been sent to help. The U-boats then appeared to adopt a new policy. First they concentrated on the mid-Atlantic, where convoys were furthest from air support. Secondly they spread their forces as far over the main shipping routes as possible. U-boats had undertaken 'patrols of long duration and had made sharp raids, some around the Cape of Good Hope to the Mozambique Channel and the east coast of Brazil. There had also been incursions into the Gulf of Aden, presumably by Japanese craft. Mr Alexander said aircraft played an essential part in U-boat warfare, as they forced the U-boats down, out of contact with convoys, or to the surface, where they could be attacked. More than half the attacks on U-boats were made by aircraft. From December last to the end of February tonnage losses by the Allies had been much less than in the corresponding months of last winter, although they were competing against a larger number of U-boats. Mr Alexander added that there was still probably a larger output of U-boats than the total numbers being destroyed but the gap was being reduced, results in that direction in the last four months having been the most encouraging of the war. In February they had achieved the best results against U-boats yet experienced. Referring to the protection of Britain’s shores and the maintenance of the sea route to Russia, Mr Alexander said these operations had cost the loss of two cruisers, ten destroyers, six other warships and, above all, many valuable lives, but the sustenance brought to Russia had paid a great dividend to the United Nations. Malta had been sustained and relieved at a cost of three cruisers, nine destroyers and two aircraft-carriers, in addition to merchant ships. With the help on two occasions of a United States carrier, our carriers had transported 744 fighters to Malta. Mr Alexander also referred to the successful North African landing, which he said had included the biggest fleet of aircraft-carriers ever assembled by the Royal Navy. Sea transport remained vital to the armies in North Africa and already a million tons of supplies had been carried to them, in addition to the half-million tons mentioned by Mr Churchill.