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KING'S STUDIO
TEL. 28755
TAYLOR'S LONDON OLD TOM & DRY GIN
"BLOCKADE"
(By A NAVAL CORRESPONDENT)
A BATTLE HAS BEEN RAGING FOR MORE THAN HALF A YEAR OF WHICH WE HAVE HEARD LITTLE OR NOTHING, APART FROM THE BARE TOTAL OF LOSSES THAT WE OUR- SELVES HAVE SUFFERED.
It is an odd position, but this one-sided view of the naval struggle in the Atlantic is all but inevit- able. So much of what we would like to say about our own strokes of good fortune and of the good work done by our men out there would be helpful to the enemy, if he could but get hold of the informa- tion.
The battle of the Atlantic is Hitler's desperate effort to enforce his "total "blockade" of Britain, Heavily defeated in his lightning stroke with the U-boat attack on our seaborne trade at the outset of the war, he had to abandon the campaign for several months while the utterly unexpected losses in his submarine flotillas were made good.
cented by a weekly average of Binkings of 88,000 tons,
The table, however, throws an interesting light on the ebb and flow of the ballle of the Atlantic. 1t will be seen that in every
month there is one outstanding week and at least one (occasion- ally two) when the total falis to about all the general average.
"JERRY IS FOXY"
"Why the sp-and-so don't you answer?" bawl- ed the bomber pilot to his radio operator.
He forgot the microphone, which carried his curse to the operations room behind.
They were checking over the equipment before taking off for a night raid in Cologne,
In the operations room every- body taughed at the pilot's language including the King, who, as Marshal of the R.A.F., had come to take part in the night's work at the station.
Arriving early on the airfield The Menace From
This fluctuation was also a the King, it was revealed, stayed to characteristic of the 1917 attacks, cross-examine the pilots as they The Air
and the meaning of it, as we dis- came home minus their bombs, covered then, is that only a pro- Attempts during last winter to
portion of the U-boat captains are Throughout his visit work went make mines an alternative and
really competent, and equally effective element in the
that the on normally. He walked into the the room and heard blockade were also defeated by periods when these few men are "briefing"
back in harbour, resting and re-intelligence officer giving and he quickly realised how fitting, are comparatively quies- crews their instructions.
us
hollow were Gorring's pre-war boasts that the Luftwaffe would speedily stop all traffic to British ports.
Neither on the sea nor in the ports has the German Air Force seriously affected the naval side
of the war.
cent.
1 In 10 Dangerous
the
Not So Hot Now
"Your target is not an easy one The official German history of to find," said the officer, giving the last U-boat campaign listed details of cloud conditions and of twenty "aces" and some twenty- the German defences, five next best among the com- manding officers, Allowing for: "Cologne used to be considered Accordingly, Jast May, when men killed on service and replaced a very hot spot, but it is not new U-boats begin to come into by promoted first officers, there bad now." service, Hitler reverted to the were about 450 captains engaged Tirpitz me thors of unrestricted throughout the war. One in ten of submarine war. He had the luck, them was really dangerous to our which the Kaiser's Navy never shipping.
had, to seize huval bases much nearer to the Atlantic traffic lanes. He broke out of the "Wet Tran- gle" of the Heligoland Bight. Even since then the weekly totals of tonnage sunk have been serious. They have fluctuated for reasons to be discussed later, but the aver- age of the six months is a big figure.
Those who only see the indivi- dual weekly returns may not have realised just the size of the inroads made on the world's sca- carrying capacity, so it may be well to give a tabulation, correct ed by Admiralty figures, of the losses for six months.
Weekly Losses
S
tone
U
Q
June 2
85,614
9
45,905
16
23
53,115 91,370
30
30,377
P
U
July
7
75,833
June 1 to December 1, 1940 Wock
British Total World ending
tons 110,195 82,908 115,199 174,775 51,339 114,137
14
40,409
72,649
21
37,577
58,368
E
28
65,601
72,091
A
Aug. 4
73,185
88,251
11
32,257
46,639
R
18
41,175
55,388
25
108,404
117,814
L
TAYLOR'S
L
Sept. 1
62,921
94,898
8
44,975
77,280
London Dry
15
55,153
75,107
22
145,036
172,407
A
GIN
29
56,006
I
Oct.
30,086
72,506 40,315
13
52,608
T
20
154,279
03,563 205,781
27
0,980
18,443
I
T
Nov. 3
65,609
71,012
10
69,110
87,903
17
57,977
74,070
V
24
80.420
92,841
OLD PENSIONE
E
Y
Dec, 1
41,300
52,220
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Better Than In 1917
ac-
And, as further evidence of their skill, it may be pointed out that only three of the twenty "aces" were eliminated-one by an cident at sea, one by the destruc- tion of his boat, and one by cap- ture. The "dog-fox" in submar- ine warfare well deserved
the nickname given to him by our hunting flotillas.
$0.
Then the King walked into the crews' rovin, where the. men change into flying kit, and heard them being given last minute in- structions.
"Make two runs over your target. You'll have to decide for yourselves what height you will bomb from, and what type of attack you'll make."
The crews went out to the big Wellingtons waiting on the tarmac while the King went to "Ops" and heard the pilots get their "fixes" (a check of position and course),
The solution of the problem, now as then, is multiplication of the number of hunting craft, It is true that modern detector ap-
While the bombers were over paratus has to some extent eased Germany he dined in the officers' the work of locating the sub-mess, took a whisky and soda in merged vessel, but against that the the sergeants' mess, studied the area in which the Germans can inaps and charts. work is far more extensive now, owing to the fact that they can start their operations from the occupied ports on the
Bay
of Biscay, and so save the 3,000 mile trek round the North of Scotland from the German bases.
A Comforting Estimate
At midnight the first bomber came in, and the young squa- dron leader gave hia report, while his crew crowded round.
"Were you able to drop your bombs on the target?" asked the King.
"Yes, sir. The weather wasn't good, and we had nine-tenths
It is not yet permissible to dis- close the scene of all their attacks, cloud. but indications of some localities have been given, since the in- formation
already known publicly in neutral countries. And, it is evident that our hunting has | to be done over a much feld than in 1917.
was
Have we had any success?
wider
"But I managed to pick up a bend in the Rhine which gave me my direction, and I made my two runs over the target, unloading on the railway mar. shalling yards."
"Was there much opposition?”
Only two Admiralty bulletins have referred to this side of the
"Well, sir, Jerry is still playing battle in the past six months. foxy. There were no searchlights, From them
no flak until I dropped my bombs. we know of nine Then fourteen German submarines sunk in the came on making a cone in the sky, or fifteen lights Atlantic; of some Italians we have inklings in the Issue of
and Jerry chucked everything up
names of prisoners of war. But from the A.A. guns to the apex of that is nothing like the whole
the cone,"
of the story.
To Berlin, Too
When the aquadron-leader told the King that he had made twenty-three fights over Ger- many the King naked:
"Havo. you been to Berlin?"
The average monthly destruc- tion of enemy craft was between flye and six in 1917-1918. In the This gives us in round figures a autumn of last year it was higher total world loss of some 2,379,000 than that, for Mr. Churchill ad- tons for the six months. The figure mitted that the rate of sinking was for the first six months of the un-between two and four a week. I restricted campaign in 1817 was we have doubled our 1917 rate in 3,304,000, approximately a million these past months we have, as I quito well." more tons than the Nazi effort has | calculate it, removed seven-tenths achieved.
\
"On yes, sir, I know that place
The crows of two other bomb- of the additional U-boats that ers which harl been over themy Hitler threw into the battle be-invasion ports were having coffee! The Prime Minister's word tween May and August.
and smoking cigarettes while their for the lossop in his speech to If we keep up that rate of comrades made their report. the Commons was "dipquiating," destruction, we are equal to his and no ong will attempt to probable rate of replacement: That minimise the drain on the is a comforting thought-uven world's shipping that is repre- though it is entirely unofficial.
lala E
The King chatted to several of these men-makee-learns," who had just made their Arst, Opera- tional flight over enemy territory.
1.