The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1943-02-23
German, Jap
Subs Destroyed
Navy Expands
Anti-Sub War

WASHINGTON, Feb. % Up
- The Navy announced today
the sinking of a German sub
marine in the Atlantic and a
Japanese submarine in the Pa
cific and Secretary Knox said
that every available weapon is
being used TO bring the Atlantic
U-boat menace under control.
Knox told a press conference
that generally speaking losses of
United Nations merchantships
in the Atlantic have been much
lower in the last three months
but the submarine, he declared,
most emphatically still is a
very grave menace"
The two sinkings announced
today, the Secretary said, are not
isolated cases but of other subs
believed to have been success
fully attacked at least percent
age would have to be classified
only as probably sunk The
Navy still declines TO issue the
total number of enemy subs de-
stroyed for security reasons.
OFFSET LOSSES
The Secretary said he is sure
that despite the U-boats being
destroyed the Germans are still
building them faster than they
are losing them. In the present
situation, he added, there is
nothing on which to predicate
any sanguine hopes for early
stoppage or cure of the menace. "
1--WE need to press just as hard
as ever for construction of de-
stroyers and escort vsesels,' he
said.
The Secretary also said that
the cooperative use of planes and
surface ships is proving very eff
fective against submarines and
that mo measures that we are
familiar with which would help
reduce the sub menace are not
being used - there is no foolish
feeling of complacency about
this situation"
Of the two enemy summers
ibles announced today as hav-
ing been destroyed, the German
U-boat was sunk in fight with
a destroyer in the Atlantic while
the Japanese was wrecked by
the armed guard crew of an
American merchant vessel which
it had torpedoed.
NIGHT ATTACKS
Both actions were at night
The destroyer had one torpedo
fired at it but lodged. The Pa
cific encounter did not start un-
til the submarines first torpe-
do, fired without warning. hit
the heavily loaded merchant
man.
The japanese torpedo struck
the cargo ship on the port side
and almost lifted it out of the
water. The engine room was
wrecked. the radio room de-
molished and the ships crew
and 35 passengers prepared to
abandon ship amid the flames,
smoke and debris. They even
tually did abandon but the next
morning the vessel was still
afloat and it was soon recovered
and lowed to an Allied port so
that both cargo and ship were
saved.
The Japanese submarine skip
per, the Navy said, "made one
mistake - it proved TO be his
last"
FATAL ERROR
Immediately after the torpedo
hit he surfaced his craft and sent
she'll from his heavy deck gun
over the forward gun mount OF
the merchantmen. The range
was only 200 yards, but the Jap
missed. The sub then opened up
with machine gun.
Lieutenant (jg) Charles z
Southern, 80, Of N a S h vii | e
Tenn, commanding the vessels
armed guard, opened fire with
its after gun. Another gun crew
man opened up with the for.
ward gun.
The guns of the merchantmen
fired only four shells - all they
could obtain quickly from the
ammunition boxes which had
been jammed by the torpedoing
The four were enough, however
for two were direct hits.
AS the sub began to sink and
oil and debris spread over the
water, Southern and one OF his
men started two machine guns
going =and=poured= over 400
rounds into the sinking vessel.
"She was definitely sunk" the
Navy said.
Captain Jack Edgerton of San
Francisco, Calf, master of the
merchantmen, gave the order to