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Losses of Merchant Vessels due to Marine Risks, during the first year of the war. 12. The monthly rate of British tonnage lost by marine risk during the first year of the war was 24,000 tons, which is the same as the average monthly losses from this cause during the years 1914-18, but the corresponding peace-time figure for the average of the eight years preceding this war was only 7,000 tons.

The average monthly rate of loss of foreign tonnage during the first year of this war was 31,000 tons. Here again this figure is about the same as the relative figure for the years 1914-18 (viz., 32,000 tons) as compared with 21,000 tons for the average monthly loss during the eight years preceding the present war.

A graph showing a comparison of Marine Risks in Peace and War for British Allied and Neutral shipping during the first year of the war is attached at the end of this Résumé.

Protection of Seaborne Trade.

13. 807 ships, including 103 Allied and 35 neutral, were convoyed during the week ending noon the 2nd October, of which two were sunk by U-boats and two by aircraft. Five other ships were torpedoed and sunk after they had dispersed from outward-bound convoys. Ten armed merchant cruisers, 33 destroyers, 14 sloops and 24 corvettes were employed on escort duties. 125 ships, of which 105 were British, have been lost in convoy since the commencment of hostilities and, of these, 65 have been sunk since the 1st July, 1940. During June, July and August 233 British of 1,835,705 tons and 57 Allied and neutral ships of 183,501 tons have arrived in home ports unescorted.

Imports into Great Britain by ships in convoy during the week ending the 28th September totalled 799,188 tons, compared with 830,794 tons for the previous week. Seven tankers brought 66,855 tons of oil of various grades. Mineral imports were 291,646 tons, or 5,117 tons more than last week. Of these 212,779 tons were iron ore, pig iron, scrap iron and steel. Timber and wood pulp imports were 98,864 tons and cereals were 192,307 tons, 19 ships being fully laden with grain. This is 78,958 tons more than last week. Other food imports amounted to 93,890 tons, or 56,988 tons more than last week.

Enemy Intelligence.

German.

14. Air reconnaissance on the 28th September showed Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and Lutzow in dock at Kiel and that the new battleship Bismarck and an 8-inch cruiser possibly the Prinz Eugen-had left the port. It is possible that Scharnhorst's return to the floating dock after coming out and lying alongside may be the result of the air attacks on the 26th September. The new battleship Tirpitz, which had emerged from the Bauhaven at Wilhelmshaven, has now gone into the floating dock there, and the new cruiser Seydlitz is still completing at Bremen. A report states that the cruisers Emden, Koln and Nurnberg, together with a ship which may be Admiral Scheer, were at Swinemunde on the 21st September, and another report gave a Hipper-class cruiser with destroyers in company proceeding northward on a line between Skagen and the Paternoster Light on the 25th September. This latter report also gave the Hipper-class cruiser southward bound a day or two later.

The disposition of German destroyers seems to be five or six in the Brest area and six to eight in Home Waters.

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The disposition of barges and merchant shipping in the invasion ports remains very much as last week. The barge concentrations are fairly evenly distributed from Flushing to Havre, with the larger ships at Havre, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, and naval ships at Rotterdam and Havre. There has been some indication of a movement of barges and shipping and certainly of naval ships westward to Cherbourg, Brest and round the peninsular of Brittany to Lorient.

U-boats have again been active in the North-Western Approaches, and at least two have been working over 300 miles west of the Irish Coast. On the 27th September there were ten U-boats reported in Lorient, and seven were still there two days later.

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