Evening star., 1943-06-12
Germans Relying
On Submarines
Major Eliot Discusses Nozis'
Hope to Delay Defect by
Continued U-Boot Campaign
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

~VHSII0SO O-OOON SOUuHOISu
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
In all our thinking about the progress
Of the war we must remember that the
enemy's purpose now is delay. Neither
Germany nor Japan can have any hope
of defeating the formidable alliance op-
posed to them. They hope only to drag
the war out long enough so that out
of sheer WEAKNESS we shall leave them
with at least a portion of their spoils
and a chance to start all over again a
few years hence.
1t is with this basic purpose in mind
that the German high command has
been laying such great stress on their
U-boat warfare. They hope by subma-
rine war of attrition against the At
lantic sea lanes to delay the accumu-
lation of American fighting power in
Europe and Africa, so that nothing de-
cisive can be done this year, and they
hold up the U-boat to the suffering
German people as the agent of saliva
ton.
Thus the U-boat campaign forms an
essential part of the German strategy,
both in the physical and psychological
spheres. The increasing evidence that
this campaign is not going we'll for the
Germans, and may be on the point of
breaking down altogether, is therefore
of very great and indeed of funda-
mental Importance
Such evidence continues to pile up.
In recent article I pointed out that
our antl-submarine campaign was, in
all Of its several departments, proceed
ing much better than we could have
hoped last January, when the outlook
for the coming year was in this respect
pretty dark. In that article 1 was
chiefly concerned with the falling off
in losses Of our merchant shipping be-
tween March and April and between
April and May.
Now it appears that while our losses
OF merchant ships are declining the
enemy's losses in U-boats are going up.
Last Sunday Howard Smith, the CORE
spondent of the Columbia Broadcasting
System at Berne, Switzerland. broadcast
report from German sources admit
ting that nine German submarines were
definitely known to have been lost dur
ing May and 81 were missing and con-
sidered lost-a total loss of 30. This
checks with the statement of the first
lord Of the admiralty that in May, for
the hrst time, the rate of destruction
was substantially" greater than the
building rate. 1t has been estimated
that the Germans are building about
% submarines month. Some COMPARE
son with the records of the last war
may be instructive. During the crucial
year 1917 the average rate of destruc-
ton of German submarines was SIS
month. During 1918 the rate of de-
structlon increased to 8.4 a month. The
first figure was about 20 per cent below
the German production rate of that
time, the second exceeded it by about
the same percentage-and made all the
difference in the world. Therefore, if we
can keep up the good work of May we
are making real progress, and on the
basis of past lessons we may soon have
the enemys submarine war under def
mite control.
There is one more point we'll worth
keeping in mind. In submarine warfare
everything depends on the commanding
officer. The combination of qualities
which goes to make a first-class sub
marine skipper is rare and, even when
found, can only be developed by long
training and experience. In the last
war the Germans used some 3OO-odd
submarine captains. Between them these
officers accounted for something over
llOOO,O00 tons of Allied and neutral mer-
chant shipping. But, of this total, 4OOO,-
o00 tons was sunk by the 25 most skillful
U-boat captains, who thus averaged
about 100000 tons each The remainder
averaged only some $4,000 tons each
before being accounted for In other
words, about s per cent of the German
captains did about 81 per cent of the
damage.
In this war the Germans use the wolf
pack system to capitalize on the skill
ana experience of the chosen few, bv
making each good captain the COM
mander OF group of submarines. Ger
many IS thus even more dependent than
IN the last war on these few men, and
the loss of even one of them is a pro-
portlonately greater loss to the whole
German submarine effort
1t is, therefore, most hearteninp tn
hear, from authoritative British sources.
that the successes scored against the
U-boats during the past few weeks have
included the destruction of a number
OF the most experienced German sub
marine captains. This fact in itself
would account, at least in part, for the
decreasing losses of our tonnage and
the increasing enemy losses of U-boats.
lhls is not the moment for overopti
m4sm, but it is not too much to say
that II the good work of killing these
sklAcu captains can be kept up, the
submarine will cease to be a formidable
threat to Our Atlantic lifeline.
tCopyrleht, 1913. by New York Tribune, Inc)