BRITISH SUBMARINES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 79, 27 December 1940, Page 3

BRITISH SUBMARINES

Several Recent Successes

HE exploits of British submarines have been in the news several times in the last few weeks. They have been active since the beginning of the war, more active, indeed, than the German U-boats, but there is a very great difference between the operations of the submarines of the two navies. The U-boat’s quarry is the unarmed merchantmen, which come in a steady stream to British ports from all parts of the world, says the naval correspondent of a London newspaper. The U-boat has no need to search for targets; they are always there, and all that the U-boat commander has to do is to try to discover a weak spot in their defences, or to deliver his attack at long range from outside the ambit of the defenders. A British submarine, on the other hand, has very few targets available, and they are to be found only in waters close to enemy territory, which are closely patrolled by enemy aircraft, destroyers, and patrol boats-all of them formidable antagonists for the submarine. The British submarine commander’s quarry are enemy warships and ships in the military service of the enemy, either as troopships or supply ships for his fighting service. In the early months of the war none of these was to be found at sea, except German warships on their infrequent sorties; and it so happened that no

British submarine was fortunate enough to make contact with them until H.M.S. Salmon fell in with the German Fleet on December 13, 1939, and torpedoed at least two ships in it. Since the enemy has overrun the neutral countries to the north and west of him, however, he has had more frequent occasion not only to move troops by sea but also to run a fairly frequent service of supply ships for them. The land communications of Norway are sparse, and even before the German attack on that unfortunate country, probably well over half the normal communications of the country were carried on by sea. The German forces of occupation are just as dependent on sea transport for their support as was the civil population before there were any Germans there, H.M.S. Sturgeon successfully attacked a heavily laden enemy transport in the Kattegat on September 2, and it was reported that some thousands of German troops were then drowned. Recently, the destruction of three enemy supply vessels, two by one of the smallest submarines of the Navy, H49, and one by one the larger, H.M.S. Tuna, was reported. The locality of these two latter attacks was not made public, but it was stated that ali those ships were being convoyed by the enemy, and it may thus be taken for granted that they were in enemy waters. That alone, indicates the high standard of skill of the British submarine commanders and the difficulties which face the enemy when he tries to make use of the sea which he does not command.