Evening star., 1939-07-29
U-Bouts in the Baltic

Evidently in retaliation for recent
maneuvers over France by squadrons
of British bombing planes, five OF
Germany's seven submarine flotillas
have just completed some spectacular
battle practice in the Baltic.
Berlin makes no concealment of
the fact that the U-boats carried out
their exercises at this time in the
waters adjacent to Danzig as direct
warning" to Great Britain not to
figure that her supreme navy can be
used to coerce or thWart the Reich in
the event of war with Poland. On the
theory that the British might at
tempt to land troops on the Baltic
coast, the Nazi submarines carried
out some special operations against
mythical transport conveys, several
of which, the German admiralty re-
ports, were sunk" To give verisimili-
tude to the maneuvers, they were
featured by U-boat night attacks.
Goebbels' subservient press is filled
with glowing accounts of the success
full and "warlike" character of the
exercises, with appropriate recollec-
tions of the world War spirit, which
lives on in our new submarine arm.
The hard tests of the Baltic exercises
proved this with clarity. = = The
German people may be assured that
the fleets strong U-boat branch will
prove the same feared weapon for
every enemy today as during the
years 1914-1918. It is equipped and
ready for any and all employment"
1t was only in last Sundays Star
that David Lloyd George pointed out,
in assailing Mr.. Chamberlain's
diplomacy with Russia, how the
British grand fleet had found the
Baltic nut it could not crack during
the World War, because of the i'm
pregnability of Germany's subma-
rine and mine defenses in those wa
ters. That the Nazi Reich possesses
even a stronger U-boat fleet than
the Germany of Won Tirpitz cannot
be doubted. Late last year Hitler
served notice on Britain that he pro-
posed to take advantage of the sub
marine escape" clause of the Anglo
German naval pact, whereby the
Reich would be at liberty to build an
unlimited number of what Mr.. Bal
four at the Washington Conference
called "the assassins of the sea-"
How near Germany came to sub
marining Great Britain into submis-
sion in 1917-1918 is a matter of sta
tistical knowledge. When United
States Admiral Sims reached London
in April, 1917, just after we entered
the war, Admiral Jellicoe told him
that unless the U-boat campaign
could be checked, "it will be impos-
sible for us to go on with the war,
which the Germans would otherwise
win" The Kaisers submarines had
sunk $4,000 tons of British and neu-
trail shipping in February, 1917;
SOB 900 in March and Jellicoe feared
April would see 100000 tons de-
stroyed. Starvation for the British
Isles and for the army in France
seemed imminent.
1t is small wonder that German
passions are stirred and German
hopes raised when they are told that
their sailors who go down to the sea
in U-boats are prepared and able to
repeat the murderous history made
by those craft twenty-five years ago.
Yet the submarine menace was con-
quered in the end, thanks in no small
degree to cooperation of the United
States Navy, and it was Germany,
not Britain, that was eventually
starved into defeat and surrender.
On that point Goebbels U-boat
gloatings are eloquently silent.