World War: AT SEA: Hunger Gets a Brush Off

For the first time since the flurry over Rudolf Hess’s arrival in Scotland, Winston Churchill referred last week to Britain’s most distinguished uninvited guest. He did not answer any questions as to Hess’s mission; instead he used the flyaway Nazi to nail home for British listeners the point that there had been a great improvement in the Battle of the Atlantic.

“In various remarks Deputy Führer Hess has let fall from time to time during his sojourn in our midst,” the Prime Minister told Parliament, “nothing has been more clear than that Hitler relied upon a starvation attack even more than upon invasion to bring us to our knees. … So far as 1941 is concerned, these hopes at least have been dashed to the ground. . . .” There were figures, good solid figures, to substantiate this contention. Apparently the grim months when losses went so high that the Admiralty was frightened into silence—and when starvation seemed a real fear—were over. Whereas in the four months from March through June Britain and her Allies had lost 2,000,000 tons of merchant shipping, the four full months since then, July through October, had seen a drop to less than 750,000 tons.

Not only were losses declining; replacements were on the upswing. New ship production figures were a deep secret, but yards in both the U.S. and Britain were turning out new bottoms in record time.

Winston Churchill told Parliament that Britain’s net merchant shipping loss in the last four months has been cut 80% below the previous quarterly figure.

The British picture had other favorable aspects: the U.S. was participating actively in convoys and patrols; now that the Neutrality Act was virtually repealed, it would soon move in with increasing numbers of armed merchant ships. Allied convoys were larger and better escorted. Germany had admitted that Britain’s greatest tactical advantage lay in Iceland, where convoys put in to regroup their ships according to speed and value before the last dash to British ports. U-boat wolf packs were still extracting heavy tolls,* but improved depth charges and Allied defensive technique were growing more effective.

Conceding that Britain’s July-August losses were “relatively low,” Germans talked knowingly of a sudden upward spurt, boasted of a vastly augmented submarine fleet, “new weapons” and improved tactical methods, new fully trained submarine crews. They promised additional and expanded U-boat wolf packs, and pointed out that long winter nights are a prime U-boat advantage, since subs usually remain submerged during the day, fight from the surface at night.

In spite of such talk, the German were none too sure of themselves, Said a Nazi spokesman: “The Atlantic is the real scene of the war against England. . . .A successful war at sea will take a long time.”

*Survivors of the torpedoed freighter Bold Venture said that approximately 15 submarines sank 13 vessels of a 53-unit convoy the night the American destroyer Reuben James went down.