Evening star., 1941-09-29
British Say Nazis
Have Only 6 Major
Ships Fit 10 Fight
Fewer Than II German
Destroyers Remain;
U-Bout Losses Cut
By HI. J. J. SARGENT.

Foreign Correspondent of The Star
and North American Newspaper Alliance.
LONDON, Sept. 29.-In the third
year of the war the Germans have
available for immediate action the
battleship Tirpitz, the pocket bat
tleship Admiral Scheer, the Ad-
miral Hipper, which is an 8-inch
gun cruiser, and the sister ship
of the Prinz Eugen, now damaged
at Brest, and three modern 6-inch
cruisers. The remainder of the
German heavy cruiser feet has been
either sunk or damaged.
The number of German destroyers
fit to fight is something in the
order of 10 or dozen.
These facts were given to me by
ranking British naval officer
whose name I may not mention.
This is in accordance with British
custom.
In an interesting sketch of the
headlong submarine campaign with
which the Germans opened the war
dG sea my SAID.
The Germans started with a big
advantage as regards submarines.
They had made up their minds be-
fore the war started to adopt an
unrestricted submarine campaign
and they had their submarines out
in their patrol positions before the
outbreak of war.
Nazis Get Jump.
"We, on the other hand, could not
adopt our main defensive measure,
the convoy system, before the begin
ming of hostilities because it would
have caused too great an interfer-
ence with our peace-time sea-borne
trade. Consequently during the first
two months Of the war our losses
from submarines were high. After
that, in the first winter of the war,
they progressively declined because
we got the convoy system into full
swing and we were able, as Italy
was neutral, to withdraw forces
from the Mediterranean and employ
them as convoy escorts.
During the first six months of
the war, therefore, we rather felt
that the convoy system and the
'asdic,' which had been a develop
ment since the last war, were very
successful but we were quickly dis
abused in our hope that we had
| the measure of the submarine once
and for all in this war when France
collapsed. The improved position of
the Germans enabled them to bring
very much heavier submarine forces
on the ocean routes as they ap-
preached this country"
Weakened at Dunkerque.
The British lost a good many de-
stroyers during the operations in
Norway and in the evacuation from
France, with the result that conveys
suffered through being sparsely es-
corted and shipping losses during
the month of July, 1910, were about
six times what they had been aver
aging during the previous spring
and winter.
1T was not" the officer went on
to say, until the end Of last year
and the beginning of this year that
We were really able to put round
our conveys escorts of the size
which we consider desirable, and it
was not until November, December
and January last that a marked re-
duction in the submarine losses was
achieved.
However, during the early spring
of this year the losses scared again.
I think that was mainly due to the
fact that the Germans were then
probably operating about three
had been at the beginning of the
war.
Losses Much Reduced.
But oud building program was
also bearing fruit and various other
measures which I cannot mention
| in greater detail had also been
brought into play and recently there
has been, as you know, a very great
improvement in the losses from sub
| marines.
"I would like to make the point
that the so-called battle of the At
lantic is not a battle in the sense
| that it can be won or lost and the
forces which we are now using there
can be withdrawn elsewhere. 1t is
battle which will go on as long
as the war goes on and the more
we drive the German submarines
away from one area, the further
afield they will roam and the more
escorts we shall need.
you may say that there is no
top figure for escorts as far as this
war is concerned and it is apparent
that should we get into trouble in
the Far East still more escorts will
be required. The battle of the At
lantic will be won by us because we
shall keep the shipping losses down
to some figure at which they can
be replaced and at which the i'm
ports into this country can be
maintained
Expected Raiding Tactics.
Turning to surface warships, the
officer remarked: "At the Begin
ming of the war the Admiralty rea-
lized that the days of big naval bat
ties were over and we anticipated
that the Germans would use their
surface warships singly on the wide
ocean spaces to hunt down our
merchant ships. We we're all very
surprised that the outbreak of the
war did not find all three German
pocket battleships dispersed about
the oceans.
cat one time or another, however,
all the pocket battleships have been
out and in addition two of the
German 8-inch cruisers, both their
battle cruisers and the Bismarck
have been out. OF these ships which
have come out the Graf Spec has
been sunk, the Lutzow has been
torpedoed and very badly damaged,
the Bismarck has been sunk and the
Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and the