FIGHTING THE U-BOATS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20920, 27 September 1939, Page 8

FIGHTING THE U-BOATS

SUCCESS OF BRITISH OPERATIONS GREAT PART PLAYED BY AIR FORCE HOUSE OF COMMONS JOINS IN CHEERING (Official Wireless) (Received Sept. 27, 3.30 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 26 Mr Winston Churchill, reviewing the activity of the Navy against the German U-boat meance, like the Premier, paid tribute to the important part being played by the Royal Air Force, both in directing destroyers upon their quarry and in themselves attacking.

The part of the First Lord’s statement which attracted much attention was an announcement tiiat an enormous building programme of new ships of a simple character, capable of being very rapidly constructed, was already in full operation, and the whole House joined in cheering his closing sentences, in which he declared that if his surmise—he would not put it higher—that the U-boat menace would not this time come within the reach of assuming the serious proportions it did in 1917, were proved correct, it meant that “one primary danger is falling into its proper confines, that amid all our anxieties we can feel certain of a steady measure of assurance so far as submarines are concerned that the British Empire and all its friends in every quarter of the globe will be able to develop those immeasurable latent forces, and that the whole strength and great resources and man-power of these many communities can be concentrated in evergrowing intensity upon the task we have in hand in which task we have only to persevere to conquer.” Mr Churchill also had the sympathy of all parties in the House in his measured denunciation of the methods of warfare, contrary to the long-declared traditions of the sea — methods which were now being turned against neutral shipping. In the last few days Finnish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, Norwegian and Belgian ships had been sunk on the high seas in an indiscriminate manner, with loss of life.