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Anti-Submarine Operations.

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7. Only seven hunts by surface vessels and five attacks by aircraft have taken place. An attack, with every promise of success, was carried out on the 11th March by an aircraft on a reconnaissance of the Heligoland Bight, which atacked a U-boat in the entrance to the River Elbe. Four 250-lb. S.A.P. bombs were dropped, one or two of which hit the U-boat. In the remaining attacks there was no definite indication of success.

The value of the armament recently supplied to fishing vessels was shown when two Fleetwood trawlers, the Cloughton Wyke and Chiltern, attacked by a U-boat off the Hebrides on the 8th March, cut away their gear and opened fire with their guns. The U-boat broke off the attack and made no effort to resume it.

Protection of Seaborne Trade.

8. 1,034 ships, including 46 Allied and 251 Neutral, have been convoyed during the week. Included in this number are five ocean convoys: two from Halifax, two from Gibraltar, and one from Sierra Leone, comprising altogether 154 ships, one of which, S.S. Counsellor, was lost by striking a mine at the entrance to Liverpool harbour. S.S. Chevychase was mined and sunk in convoy from Blyth to London.

Four Norwegian convoys, two outward and two homeward, have arrived without loss from enemy action. There were no allied or neutral losses in convoy. Forty-one destroyers and twenty-three escort vessels have been employed in escort duties, in addition to two battleships and seven armed merchant cruisers for ocean escorts. Since the commencement of hostilities, 12,816 ships have been convoyed, of which twenty-eight British, one Allied and two neutral have been sunk by mine or torpedo, a loss equivalent to one ship in 458.

German Attack on Seaborne Trade.

9. Eleven ships of a total of 25,578 tons have been sunk during the week under review. Of these, five British fell victims to mines, totalling 12,794 tons; two neutrals, totalling 8,561 tons, to submarines; and three neutrals, totalling 3,580 tons, and one British ship of 643 tons, have been lost through unknown. causes. All the neutral ships sunk were Dutch.

In addition, the Greek Niritos 3,854 tons was mined, but managed to get into harbour.

Details of these attacks as well as attacks by aircraft, none of which latter inflicted serious damage, are given in Appendices I and II.

10. The number of lives lost due to war causes in the mercantile marine personnel of British, Allied and Neutral countries from the outbreak of hostilities to the 7th March, 1940, is as follows:-

British.

921

German Minelaying.

Allied

60

Neutral.

893

11. The possible minelaying by aircraft in the entrance to Scapa Flow on the 8th March has been referred to in paragraph 2. The only other confirmed minelaying by aircraft was on the night of the 8th/9th March when objects were seen to be dropped in Bridlington Bay. Plots of unidentified aircraft off the east coast were also made on three other nights in this period which might have been enemy minelaying.

A report received from a reliable source, but not confirmed, stated that on the night of the 10th/11th March several paddle minelayers were sighted to the east of the Hinder Bank in the North Sea.

British Mine Sweeping.

12. The maintenance of the East Coast channels has again involved extensive sweeping operations. A number of contact mines have been swept up in the field north-west of the Cromer Knoll Light Vessel, but it is possible magnetic

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