FIVE AXIS SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1943, Page 3

FIVE AXIS SHIPS

SUNK IN MEDITERRANEAN BY BRITISH SUBMARINES. BOMBERS ATTACK SARDINIA & PANTELLERIA. LONDON, June 6. In the Mediterranean British submarines have sent five more enemy ships to the bottom. An Admiralty communique reports eight more successful operations by British submarines, under the noses of Mussolini’s coastal guns. A total of five ships were sunk and others were damaged. The communique states, according to a British Official Wireless message, that one submarine surfaced off Calvi, in Northern Corsica and bombarded an enemy airfield. The shore defence batteries were ineffective.

In the Straits of Bonifacio, separating Corsica and Sardinia, two small supply vessels were intercepted by a submarine and sunk. A torpedo hit on a naval auxiliary of anti-submarine type, lying at anchor at the entrance to Augusta Harbour, in Sicily, was followed by a heavy explosion as the vessel blow up. In Catania Bay, in Sicily, a large supply ship was torpedoed and was last seen stopped and down by the stern. Another submarine engaged in harassing the enemy’s coastal shipping torpedoed and sank a supply vessel of large size near the Gulf of Policastro, in Italy. In the same area a small ship was sunk by gunfire. Off the Riviera, near Monte Carlo, a medium-sized tanker was sunk, and in the Gulf of Genoa two torpedo hits probably were scored on a large supply ship, strongly escorted. Enemy coun-ter-measures prevented an observation -of the full results.

A communique from North Africa reports attacks by Allied bombers on Sardinia and Pantelleria while longrange fighters have made more successful attacks on enemy shipping supplying Italian island garrisons.