World War: This Pest

From 78,000 tons in the war’s first week to 5,000 in the fourth (last) week dropped the, tonnage of Allied shipping sunk by German U-boats. So elated were the Brit ish that they announced: “They [U-boats] have found the pace too hot for them and have retreated from much-used shipping channels and are now forced to operate out in the open sea where the ‘catch’ is bound to be a much smaller one.” The British pointed with pride to their convoy system, revealed that a flotilla of 15 freighters had arrived safely from Canada bringing 500,000 bushels of wheat. Pointing with pride also to Britain’s blockade of Germany, Winston Churchill gleefully declared that Britain had seized 150,000 more tons of contraband than she had lost by torpedoing, was thus ahead of the game.

Chortled Mr. Churchill: “The Royal Navy … is hunting them [U-boats] night and day, I will not say without mercy —because God forbid we should ever part company with that — but at any rate with zeal and not altogether without relish. ” . .

“I hope the day will come when the Admiralty will be able to invite ships of all nations to join the British convoys and in sure them on their voyages at a reasonable rate. . . . We hope . . . that by the end of October we shall have three times as many hunting craft at work as we had at the beginning of the war. . . . We hope that our means of putting down this pest will grow continually. . . .”*

France hailed the safe arrival from Halifax of the De Grasse, Champlain and Colombie in a convoyed group and French naval experts asserted that of 30 U-boats sent out in Germany’s first subsea campaign, at least ten had been destroyed by Allied fire. This rate of loss, said the French, was greater than Germany’s capacity to replace submarines.

Germany, still denying the loss of a single U-boat, replied that her shipyards can now build a seagoing submarine in six months and that plenty of them are being rushed to completion for a fresh drive to counter-blockade Britain. A. Hitler made a point of visiting the submarine base at Kiel last week and saluting “the men who sank the Courageous” (see cut).

From Norway and Sweden, Britain gets wood pulp for explosive cellulose and newsprint. Fortnight ago Germany warmed to its work by sinking one Swedish and two Finnish pulp boats. Last week two more Swedish freighters got it (one of them after the captain had been taken aboard the U-boat, given a cup of coffee and sandwiches), and it became Norway’s turn, too, with three Britain-bound pulpsters sunk, two by torpedoes, one by a mine. Sweden protested bitterly, shut down her pulp business temporarily, threatened as sharply as she dared to cut off her shipments of iron ore to Germany* if Germany did not cut out sinking her ships.

This week, Germany replied with new menace to Britain’s step of mounting guns on merchant vessels. “On the ground of self-preservation” and as a matter of “duty” all Nazi commanders were ordered to attack Allied ships without warning. First ship to feel such a stab was the neutral Danish freighter Vendia (bound for Scotland empty to get a cargo of coal which would have made a fine prize had the U-boat waited). Eleven men were killed, six taken ashore by another Danish ship after the submarine had rescued them. Danes were furious. Aside from the coldbloodedness of this attack, it followed on the heels of Germany’s seizure of four Danish ships, three carrying butter, eggs and bacon to Britain, one timber to The Netherlands. These seizures, which would never be paid for in real money, were gross violations of Germany’s reiterated promise to let Denmark trade freely with all belligerents.

Next Nazi victim to mock Winston Churchill was the British Booth freighter Clement, sunk between New York and Brazil in the South Atlantic by a “sea raider.” And down went the Swedish steamer Gun, torpedoed off Jutland.

*Editor-in-Chief Hans Fritsche of the Nazi broadcasting services frothed at the mouth in German for 13 minutes over the German air replying to Mr. Churchill’s claim of a scoreless week for the U-boats. Excerpt:

“So that is what that dirty gangster thinks! Who does that filthy liar think he is fooling?

“So Mr. Churchill—that bloated swine—spouts through his dirty teeth that in the last week no English ship has been molested by German submarines? He does, indeed?

“There you have the twisted and diseased mind of this infamous profiteer and specialist in stinking lying. Naturally those British ships have not been molested; they have been sunk.”

In an English version (4 min.) the announcer said:

“Mr. Churchill stated that no British ships had been molested during the last week. This statement is true, if Mr. Churchill does not regard the sinking of a ship as molestation.” *A large proportion of Sweden’s normal annual 8,000,000 tons of iron ore for Germany comes from the ice-free port of Narvik on the Arctic Ocean and around down the Norway coast. This will be cut off by the British blockade.