MANY ENEMY SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1943, Page 4

MANY ENEMY SHIPS

SUNK BY BRITISH MINES

LAID BY AIRCRAFT & NAVAL VESSELS. MATERIAL EFFECT ON AXIS SUPPLY LINES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.25 a.m.) RUGBY, June 28. “Net less than 400 enemy warships, supply ships and small craft have been sunk or damaged by mines laid in European waters since the outbreak of war,” state the Admiralty and Air Ministry in a joint communique. “It is probable that over 70 per cent of these casualties are Attributable to mines laid by aircraft' of the Bomber Command, whose activities have been sustained at a -very high rate during the past eighteen months, and whose ability to reach areas inaccessible to other types of mine-layers renders them specially suited for operations of this nature. Among recent successes by the Bomber Command was the mining, in the Baltic, of the German liner Gneisenau. Certain successes against U-boats are known. In one case an aircraft on patrol over the Bay of Biscay had the unusual experience of actually seeing a U-boat destroyed by a mine off Lorient.

Offensive mine-laying operations by all types of craft, surface and air, have forced the enemy to close many of his ports, from Oslo to Bayonne, from time to time, and have interrupted, traffic in important waterways, such as the Kiel Canal. Both the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines laid by aircraft of the Bomber Command during their escape from Brest, in addition to the damage they received by torpedo and bombing attacks from our light surface forces, naval aircraft and the R.A.F.

Mines laid by naval forces within a few miles of the enemy coastline have been responsible for sinking or damaging many, small warships and auxiliaries, together with numerous supply vessels. The losses inflicted on the enemy by mining have already resulted in a marked reduction of his coastwise traffic. Thus these operations are contributing materially to the destruction of the supply lines on which his armed forces depend in their attempt to hold down occupied territories.