TOLL ON SHIPPING

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20995, 23 December 1939, Page 24 (Supplement)

TOLL ON SHIPPING

GERMANY’S BIG LOSSES SIXTH OF MERCANTILE FLEET 407 VESSELS ACCOUNTED FOR (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON. Nov. 29. Four hundred and seven of Germany’s ships—one-sixth of her whole merchant fleet—are now, for all practical purposes, at the bottom of the sea. They are vessels tied up in docks, creeks and coves all over the world, at least 1000 miles from home ports. If every one of them had been torpedoed they could not be of less use to Germany than they will be for the rest of the war. Piling Up Expenses Lamentations over the loss of British ships with valuable cargoes have overlooked this virtual destruction of the Nazis’ mercantile marine. Many of these vessels are fully laden —l4O have British-owned cargoes worth nearly £5,000,000. All—even those that are empty—are piling up dock dues that are estimated to have cost German shipowners well over £1,000,000 already. The latest returns of these ocean exiles came to London last night, into the office of one of the most important of Britain’s war-time Ministries. A cable was handed to an official. He picked up a swastika flag and pinned it into a huge map of the world’s trade routes. It marked a port round the tip of Lower California, off the coast of Mexico. The movements of all these ships which failed to pass through the Bay of Biscay or round the north of Scotland before the Navy’s grip tightened three months ago are reI corded from day to day, but most days there are few changes to report. Hiding Places The map shows at a glance where the hidden merchantmen are. There are great clusters of flags round the north coast of Spain. In Vigo and its surrounding creeks are seventy-three ships. Inlets round the Gulf of Mexico hold forty-seven; in the Far East, round Japan and the eastern seaboard of Asia there are thirty-one; in Adriatic ports there are more than forty. There are groups of a dozen downwards in the great estuaries of South America, and in neutral ports of Africa. While this key map was receiving its daily record yesterday, the Ministry of Economic Warfare announced its new stranglehold on German exports as a reprisal for the breaches of international law committed by the Nazi Government during the past fortnight. This will stop a trade which was worth nearly £100,000,000 a ye;i.r to Germany before the war. She has been unable to get her goods overseas in her own ships since war started; now neutral vessels will be closed to her too.