Evening star., 1942-02-26
IA japanese Vessels
Sunk by U. 5. Since
Beginning ofWar
Nuzi U-Bouts, However,
Destroy 81 Ships
Along East Coast
fKnor statement, Page B-12J

ing a Furnishing price from Jap
anese sea power for Nippon
Pacific conquests today, but Ger
man U-boats kept striking har,
with frequent success In the At
lantic.
In the savage two-ocean wa
of attrition the Capital sough
to strike balance of the gain
and losses.
The toll taken of enemy shipping
IN the Pacific was heartening. Arm,
and Navy reports disclosed tina
since December 10 total of IA Jap
anese combatant and non-com
Blatant vessels had been sunk, sever
more probably sunk and SO dam
aged.
If losses on such q scale can b,
inflicted on Japan for the remaindel
of the year, naval officials indicated
last night, her ultimate defeat Il
assured, because her shipbuildins
resources are not equal TO providing
the necessary requirements and re-
pairs.
Battle of the Atlantic.
In the Atlantic, however, Navy
statistics testified to the unrelent'
ing vigor of the U-boat campaign
From January to February % the
number of submarine attacks or
shipping of the United Nations ir
the western half of the ocean alone
was ia, and As of them occurred
In American coastal waters. During
this period the sinkings of "a ships
have been reported officially from
Canada to the Caribbean.
The raiders have paid for Their
successes. The Navy said last night
It had good reason to believe that
three more enemy submarines have
been sunk by United States action
in the Atlantic, and four others
damaged. This was the first am
rrouncement on the subject since
December 81, when Secretary OF the
Navy Knox said that IA underseas
raiders had been destroyed or dam
aged.
Nevertheless, there was evident
need for more effective counter
measures, for Prime Minister
Churchill declared on Tuesday that
the shipping losses of the United
Nations in the last two months had
shown a most serious increase"
Figures on War Of Attrition.
Figures on the Nays work in
the war of attrition against japan
were released by Secretary Knox
at a press conference yesterday. He
said that units of the fleet had
sunk IS combatant and 38 non
combatant ships. He listed three
more combatant and four non
combatant in the believed-sunk
category. In addition two COM
batant and three noncombatant
ships were damaged,
His tabulation did not include
the destruction inflicted by the
Army air forces or by the Dutch
naval and air commands. The Army
boosted it's toll to 81 little later
with the announcement that its
heavy bombers had sent two more
japanese transports to the bottom
off Macassar in the Southwest Pa
cific. It added that formation
of American pursuit planes, inter-
cepting So Japanese bombers &C
companied by 40 fighting planes,
shot down one of the bombers and
hit several other Japanese planes.
Dutch Successes.
No complete accounting of Dutch
successes was available, but a semi
official tabulation earlier this month
credited the Netherlanders with "a
certain sinkings, six probable sink
ings and II ships damaged. The
Dutch claimed to have inflicted
additional losses on the foe since
then.
Discussing the punishment in
fiicted on the Japanese, authorized
naval spokesmen asserted that
"they can't keep these losses up
over a year with their building pro-
gram" Unless Japan can succeed
in making this a quick and fast"
war, he said, she could not hope to
win under such conditions.
The Navy announcement of jap
anese losses noted that the enemy
had lost two of the three 17.000-ton
luxury ships of the Yawata class,
the pride of the pre-war Japanese
merchant marine. One OF the two
ships destroyed had been converted
into an aircraft carrier and the
other was merchantmen.
Reminder on Normandie.
At the Capitol, however, the men
ton of luxury ships was an added
reminder that the United Nations
had lost the 85,000-ton Normandie,
at least temporarily, and her ton
mage represented the equivalent OF
five Yawata liners. @
The question of the disastrous
Normandie fire .bobbed up again
yesterday when Representive Dick
stein, Democrat, of New York
charged in the House that the ship
was "sabotaged with de-
liberate design to destroy" her. He
also asserted that more than 80
''Nazi agents" we're employed as
workmen on the ship when the fire
occurred.
On the other side of the ledger
was the assurance of both Presi-
dent Roosevelt and war production
officials that the shipbuilding pro-
gram of the United States was
progressing at a pace that would
reach the 5000, ,000-ton goal set for
1942.
Jap Ship Program.
BY contrast with this, Japan's
biggest known year in merchant
shipbuilding was 1918, when the
total tonnage constructed was 489,-
900 tons. At that time United
States shipbuilding construction had
reached a rate of 100000 tons a
year.
Last available information credits
Japan with % shipyards with SO
ways for the construction of large
ships. 1t was thought likely that
some war expansion has occurred,
but Japan's limited resources of
steel and other essentials were be-
1ieved IN he tremendous handicapS