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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1942-08-13, Page 7THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1842 •SOO Warships in Thirty Months (By IL C. Ferreby) Most naval commentators have to do a good deal of jigsaw work for their own purposes, in order to piece together the scattered information about naval actions and ship cons- truction. They are not spoon-fed by the authorities, though some of my, correspondents seem to think so. In the course of this war we have gra- dually been able to build up for our- selves, just as the enemy Intellig- ence departments have been able to, an' outline sketch of the British Navy warship building activity. Let me make myself quite clear. Everything I am going to say is al- ready li known to the enemy. I am not 'helping him, unravel any secret. I am not going to supply him with any missing bits in his jigsaw puzzle. But I think I am going to surprise' all these who do not make a special study of naval information, by dis- closing to them what I know to be the minimum number of new war- ships added to the British Navy since the war began. The totalis reached only by considering information which has been passed for publica-1 tion by the censor, and all those little' items of news that have appeared from time to time since September 1939. These show us that British and Dominion shipyards must have deliv- ered more than 500 new fighting ships in the first months of the war. If you stop to think for a minute you will see what -that means, as the minimum total represents an average delivery of one new warship every two days. And that is only a mini- mum. There are some classes of war- ships, including minesweepers, motor torpedo boats and motor gunboats, about which there is no published information to guide us. They may 'be numbered by the score, or by the hundred. We don't know. But the ships of which we have information IItotal 500. A certain number of there were, of. course, building or ordered be- fore the war began. They were all recorded in the 1989 books of refer- ence. But they account only for 100 out of our total. The other 400 are wartime construction. Let us take one class of warship alone, destroy- ers, of which we are always told we cannot have enough. The published names of ships of this type sbows us that British and Dominion shipyards between them have delivered no fewer than 160 in the thirty months. That total represents about ten times the output of the corresponding Pre - War period. And I think it's a feat on which the shipyard men can look back with pride and on which the outside world ought to congratulate them. But that is only part of the story. On top of that tenfold increase •in destroyers, the yards have also been able to deliver 190 corvettes, a type of vessel we were only starting to build in 1989, and for which we have no comparative figure. It represents an average delivery of nearly seven corvettes a month, and one of the most striking features about the to- tal is the big share of it credited to Canadian shipbuilding yards. The published names of Canadian -built corvettes total sixty-one. I must not give you the impression that these 500 new fighting ships are a net addition to our strength at sea, We have lost sedenteen cruisers, 78 destroyers, 88 submarines, as well as five capital ships and four aircraft carriers, but it is pretty clear that the •effort of our shipyard men has done much more than fill the gaps. Our destroyer strength • today is nearly double what ib was at the start of the war, and we have about 180 corvettes which didn't exist at all when we first started to thwart the U-boat campaign against our mer- chant shipping. That Is a part of Britain's war effort which has hither- to been kept secret to all but a hand- ful of people. We've talked a lot about the out- put of military equipment. We've had astronomical figures about the manufacture of small arms and am- munition about airplane parts and completed aircraft, about tanks and about mechanized transport. But the shipyard men have toiled on and have rarely been remembered by the general public unless some disgruntl- ed Blimp has spluttered about wast- ed time in the dockyards. You don't produce 500 new fighting ships in thirty months by wasting time: And don't forget what I emphas- ized at the start—that that 500 is a minimum figure and that I'm talk- ing only about the building of war- ships. we have no figures to tell us what has been the shipbuilding effort in the output of new merchant ships. Finally, an aspect of shipyard work that we do not talk about at all is the repair of damaged ships. There has been a lot of it, however, and it has been done in record time. I've given you nothing here but known facts. What gives them an appear- ance of novelty, what makes them • The World's News Seen Through THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR Art International Daily Newspaper is Truthful—Constructive—Unbiased—Free from Sensational- ism —Editorials Are Timely and Instructive and Its Daily Features, Together with the Weekly Magazine Section, Make the Monitor an Ideal Newspaper for the Home. ' The Christian Science Publishing Society One, Norway Street, Boston, Massachusetts Price $12.00 Yearly, or $1.00 a Month. Saturday Issue, including Magazine Section, $2.60 a Year. Introductory Offer, 6 Saturday Issues 25 Cents, Name Address SAMPLE COPY ON REQUEST Duplicate Monthly Statements We can Save you money on Bill and Charge Forms, standard sixes to tit Ledgers, white or colors. It will pay you to see our samples. Also best quality Metal Hinged Sec- tional Post Binders and Index The Seaforth News PHONE 84 THE SWORTH NEWS. PAGE SEVEN perhaps seem a disclosure of secret information, is merely .a. little bit of industry in bringing them all togeth- er, tabulating, adding and subtract - Mg, This, you will recognize, is one of the most important tasks of the In- telligence Department; "Fighter Sweep" Aid , Second Front KBy Peter Masefield) All along the white cliffs of the south coast of England can be heard the deep drone of airplane engines. Now and again a flash in the sun, high in the sky, shows where an air- craft is wheeling, too high for nor- mal sight. Two years ago this drone would mean another Nazi raid sweeping in, to be met by the few . squadrons of RAF Fighter Command which stood. between Hitler and victory. Today it means something different. It means: that another sweep of Fighter Com- mand, now hundreds strong, is going out to France to push British air superiority forward from the coast of England. British fighter sweeps have now gone on for more than eighteen months. The very first—the turning of the tide—was on February 10, 1941. The RAF has shot down more than 2,000 enemy airplanes in this period, for a loss of less than 1,500. of its own. "More Fighters" Is the Cry Sometimes only fighters go out, its many as 1,000 daily, Often they es- cort Boston day -bombers to attack with deadly precision German install- ations along the coast, or German; controlled power stations and fac- tories miles inland. To meet them the enemy must maintain there thirty first-line squadrons, which can ill be spared from Russia and Africa, Some critics ask whether these, fighters could be used more profit- ably elsewhere. What about Burma, India, or even Egypt? "More fight- ers" is the cry from every front. The truth is that the air force is only as strong as its ground organiz- ation—ground crews, repair squads, maintenance equipment,spare parts, refuelling apparatus, ammunition and bombs. To attempt to operate more aircraft on any front than the ground organization can maintain is to lose them as certainly as if they were burned on leaving the works where they were built. Let us look at it from another side. Firstly, the RAF must maintain in Great Britain fighter strength ad- equate ;to cope with any emergency., Defense of the main base is the first consideration of warfare and the British Isles is the first responsibiiitY. of the RAF. As long as we have air mastery over Great Britain the Unit- ed Nations can build up offensive strength for an all-out ground as- sault against Germany. The enemy still has inner lines of communication and can still switch forces quickly from the east to the west, whereas we have long tortuous lines, To rob Fighter Command to reinforce Egypt, even if the ground organization eonid look after much greater forces there, would mean ex- posing England to attack without hope of quick reinforcement. A strong Fighter Command is the greatest deterrent to a Nazi Inva- sion and the fighters can be used fer• attack and defense, What does the allied cause gain from the fighter sweeps? Are they. worth all the effort expended and the losses incurred? The best answer is "yes, quite certainly." More than 500 of the enemy's best fighters and tens, of thousands of defense crews must. be kept in France to meet the raids. Germany desperately needs fighters in Russia and Africa. That 500 would make all the difference on ei- ther of those fronts. A steady drain of fighter losses in the west means that the equivalent of three new squadrons monthly has to be sent from Germany to France. How do we know this? Eirst, by the number of machines the enemy sends up to intercept • our daylight' bombers, whether they pierce the de- fenses in the east at Dunkirk, or to the west at LeHavre, We know 4it,' too, from air reconnaissance, from the numbers shot down, from the evidence of prisoners and from the: normal intelligence system. We know also haw hard the enemy is trying to conserve its strength, for if we send fighters over by them- selves the Germans often refuse to engage them in combat; so bombers are sent to make the enemy fight— or take the consequences, Ofter Hur- rieane bomber -fighters are mixed in with a Spitfire formation. Then the enemy doesn't know whether to at- tack or not, If not, the Hurricanes dive low and bomb, parked aircraft on the ground, and beat up hangars and dispersal points with cannon fire. Nazi Air Force Morale Sapped Fighters sweeps have other aims. They set out to destroy enemy ship- ping, slinking up the Channel Close to the French shore, and they also cover allied convoys coming over the Channel to the port of London, These, fighter attacks on enemy shipping . have been remarkably successful. This continuous fighting on the defensive tends to sap German air force morale. To the French people, the constant appearance of British machines keeps alive their knowledge that the fight for 'freedom still goes on and gains in strength each day. American bomber crews have al- ready been in action over this area and soon American fighters will join in these attacks on the enemy over France. This tis the beginning of a great day -and -night bombing offen- sive, a part of the "softening proc- ess" which is the first stage of build- ing up air mastery over the Nazis. This is the foundation of victory, Agnes—"How did you stop your husband from staying out late at his club?" Jane—"When he came in late 1 called nn a nice, sweet voice, 'Is that you Jack?" and my husband's name M Tom." Twins from Prince Edward Island, AW2 L. M. Bain brick and AWB. M. M. Bambrick of Charlottetown, Sind another pair of twins—mascot kittens—at the RCAF (Women's Division) Manning Depot. Iierbert Morrison, minister of Moine security, attend ed the reception in Trafalgar Square, London, to the first ,contingent of the Canadian Corps of Firefighters, who have arrived inBreat Britain to serve with the fire force.