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General Review.
NAVAL SITUATION.
1. Wide-spread gales have interfered with naval operations and may have been a contributory cause of the reduction in our merchant ship losses. British naval activity has continued in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Home Waters.
2. Gales in the Channel have reduced enemy activity, and there have been no encounters with their surface forces during the period.
H.M. Submarine H. 49 on return from patrol reported that she had attacked a north-bound convoy of six ships off the Texel on the 1st October and possibly torpedoed one. On the night of the 9th/10th October aircraft of the Coastal Command obtained hits on 2 destroyers at Brest.
3. On the 30th September H.M. Trawler Comet was sunk by a mine 40 miles south of the Lizard with the loss of all but two of the crew. On the 9th October H.M. Trawler Sea King was sunk by an under-water explosion in Grimsby Road with the loss of all hands. H.M. Ships Hambledon and Locust were damaged by mines, the former off Dover on the 7th October and the latter in the Thames Estuary on the 8th October.
H.M. Trawler Burke was damaged by a bomb during an air attack on Dover on the 8th October.
H.M. Submarine Talisman was attacked by aircraft south of the Lizard on the 3rd October, one officer was wounded.
The S.S. Oronsay (20,043 tons), employed as a troop transport, was bombed by aircraft 70 miles N.W. of the Bloody Foreland. She was damaged and suffered a few casualties and was forced to return to harbour.
H.M. Ships Bath, Brighton, Cameron, Charleston, St. Albans and St. Marys (ex-American destroyers) arrived in Belfast from Canada on the 8th October.
Norway.
4. On the 3rd October Skuas from the Fleet Air Arm attacked and hit a 5,000-ton Merchant vessel at Haugesund and a 2,000-ton ship at Bjiorne Fiord.
Mediterranean.
5. H.M. Ships Orion and Sydney carried out a brief bombardment of Maltezana in Stampalia Island (Dodecanese) on the night of the 2nd/3rd October.
On the 3rd October a force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers carried out a sweep to the West of Crete and returned to Alexandria on the 6th October. No reports of encounters with the enemy have been received.
The Mediterranean Fleet sailed from Alexandria on the 8th October, for further operations.
On the 5th October H.M. Trawler Kingston Sapphire was torpedoed by a submarine fifty miles South-West of Cadiz. Twenty-eight survivors were landed at Heulva by a Spanish trawler.
West Africa.
6. General de Gaulle, with Free French naval units and transports, arrived at Duala on the 7th October. His troops have been disembarked and a small French force has been sent to Pointe Noir.
A reconnaissance of Libreville on the 6th October showed one sloop and one merchant vessel in the harbour. It was not possible to verify the presence of submarines owing to haze.
Anti-Submarine Operations.
7. On the 5th October H.M. Submarine Tigris attacked three Italian submarines of the Santarosa class (815 tons, completed 1930), entering the Gironde
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