Page 211
4
Enemy Intelligence.
German.
13. A photographic air reconnaissance was carried out over Kiel on the 9th January. The pocket-battleship Lützow and the old battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein were alongside, and the cruiser Emden was in dry dock. The floating docks were empty and the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were not visible, but the whole of the harbour was not covered by the photographs. The new battleship Tirpitz was in Wilhelmshaven on the 8th/9th January, and the Hipper class cruiser at Brest on the morning of the 16th January.
Italian.
14. Air reconnaissances of Naval ports in southern Italy and Sicily showed that the two battleships present at Naples on the 9th January had left on the following day. It seems likely that they have gone Northwards to either Spezia or Genoa. Cruisers were seen at Naples and Messina and destroyers at Trapani and Palermo. Four cruisers, three destroyers and E-boats were seen off Marsala on the 10th January.
U-Boats.
:
15. It is probable that two or three Italian and four or five German U-boats have operated in the North-Western Approaches during the period under review, but there has been comparatively little evidence of them and the position has been at times obscure. In the area off the north-west coast of Africa there have been one or two Germans, and in the earlier part of the period. perhaps two Italians, but one of these may have returned.
Enemy Attack on Seaborne Trade.
NOTE.-The following figures give the losses which have been reported during the period the 9th to 15th January. They should not be confused with the figures shown for the last week in the diagrams of shipping losses attached at the back of the Résumé, which show the actual losses for each complete week since the outbreak of war, and are only made up to mid- night of Sunday-Monday of the week immediately preceding that covered by this Résumé. Later figures are not included in the diagrams, as they are likely to be unreliable, owing to delayed notifications and uncertainty regarding the result of recent attacks.
16. Fifteen ships and two small craft, a total of 54,666 tons, have been reported lost by enemy action; of these, all but three ships (7,290 tons) were British. Four of these ships were sunk during the period under review.
Six ships (24,346 tons) were sunk by U-boats, two off the West African coast and the remainder in the North-Western Approaches. Five ships and one steam trawler (20,722 tons) were sunk by mines. Three ships and one steam trawler (8,805 tons) were sunk by aircraft, and one ship (793 tons) by unknown enemy action.
Eight ships, of which six are British, are reported damaged. Details of ships sunk and damaged are given in Appendix I.
Protection of Seaborne Trade.
17. During the week ended noon Wednesday, 15th January, 667 ships, including 104 allied and 18 neutral, were convoyed, of which two were lost by enemy action. One battleship, one A/A cruiser, 9 armed merchant cruisers, 35 destroyers and 37 sloops and corvettes were employed on escort duty.
Imports to Great Britain by ships in convoy during the week ending the 11th January totalled 469,521 tons, compared with 636,082 tons during the week before, and an average of 729,530 tons for the previous ten weeks. Oil imports, in nine tankers, were 85,284 tons, compared with 115,862 tons in twelve tankers
Page 211
Page 211
Page 211