LOSSES AT SEA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1943, Page 4

LOSSES AT SEA

GREAT DIMINUTION SHOWN OF LATE WARM TRIBUTE TO MERCHANT NAVY. PAID BY BRITISH DEPUTY PREMIER. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) RUGBY, July 20. “The Allies’ losses at sea have notably diminished of late,” said the De-puty-Premier (Mr Attlee) in London today, “and there has been an encouraging improvement in the shipping situation.” The U-boat menace, he added, had not yet been removed, and the Allies could be certain the enemy was devoting much- thought and ingenuity to devising new methods of attack. Referring to the excellent work of the Merchant Navy, Mr Attlee said it was significant that awards to British merchant seamen already numbered over 4,500. A high proportion of these had been awarded for courage, tenacity and resource in fighting fires, battling through storms with battered snips, saving life and displaying amazing endurance and fortitude when at the mercy of the waves in open boats or on rafts.

, Coastal shipping had played an important part in the war effort, Mr Attlee added, by making hundreds of thousands of voyages which relieved the congestion on railways and helped in the rapid distribution of cargoes from ocean-going ships. The Merchant Navy had also done magnificent work in servicing the fleet. In spite of the hazards, volunteers for the Merchant 'Navy came from all directions and all ages, from schoolboys, to men of sixty, representing the British Isles the colonies, all the Dominions and’also 40,000 to 50,000 Allied and neutral seamen. There was a waiting list of apprentices that could not be absorbed in many months.