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Show 511BIIE WARFARE DISCUSSED BY WRITER Another Alarm Sounded as to Destruction of German U-Boats. LOSSES STILL HEAVY Great Britain Urged to Plan Offensive Measures as Soon as Possible. By International News Service. LONDON, O.ct. 6. A writer In a London Lon-don newspaper has the following to say regarding U-boat warfare and the development de-velopment of defensive measures: A good deal has been added within with-in the last few days to our knowledge knowl-edge of the war against the U-boat, but the most significant of what to the public are the new facts is In danger dan-ger of being overlooked. The prime minister gave us what was in many respects a reassuring statement of the position. Comparing July with April, our losses fell by 43 per cent, but as they increased 51 per cent from March to April (vide the weekly re-turn.,, re-turn.,, an upward movement must not be regarded as an impossibility. In the "best" month the sixth of the 1915 "blockade" we lost twelve merchantmen, but in the four fol-. lowing weeks thirty-five were sent to the bottom. The remarkable thing that Mr. Lloyd George told us, however, is that the number of submarines is increasing. increas-ing. Coupling this with the diminution diminu-tion in the sinkings, what does it mean? It means that our war against the U-boat is primarily a defensive de-fensive war that we are giving bet-, bet-, ter protection' to' our merchantmen, but are making no real progress along . the line of the only true defense, which is the destruction of the enemy. Construction . Increasing. The Germans are adding to their Underwater fleets faster than we are subtracting from them. That is lo say, they are not only reducing our available shipping at the net rate of nearly 3,000,000 tons a year (Mr. Lloyd George gave the monthly net average for the first half-year as "under 250,000 tons"), but they are also destroying the shipping of our allies and of neutrals and building up their flotillas of U-boats for some possibly more direct military purpose. In tile last twelve months enemy submarines have been responsible for the destruction of five battleships, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, ivo submarines, sub-marines, seven mine-sweepers and eight auxiliaries (such aa armed liners) belonging to the allies. In the same period our enemies are not known to have lost anything above the grade of a destroyer. Such fads indicate that the . legitimate fighting possibilities of the submarine have not yet been exhausted; indeed, the opinion of many of our most thoughtful thought-ful and progressive officers is that we have hardly touched the fringe of them any more than we have of the use of the mine In fleet tactics. By the way, the prime minister told us that "losses from mines are not very considerable; they are mostly from submarines." It comes to much the same thing, however, since the great majority of enemy mines are also "from suomarines." Quotes From Beresford. He nowhere said that we are making mak-ing greater headway than before with Lhe primary and vital task of destroying destroy-ing the U-boats. The "admiralty plans are increasingly successful." are "meeting with considerable success"; but if the enemy is increasing the number of his sea-keeping submarines it is clear that the plans are not successful suc-cessful in the only sense In which success ought to be measured. To paraphrase something that Lord Leresford said thirty years ago, we don't want to 6top the enemy front hitting us we want to hit him, and hard. Under the cover of our defensive de-fensive measures, whose success, pro tern., is certainly written legibly enough in the sinking returns, the Germans are making good use of their submarines against both warships and merchantmen and at the same time building up strong and ever more numerous flotillas. While that is going on It is absurd for us to claim success. The Germans Ger-mans are building with a purpose, which may or may not be the one they prate about so loudly; and if we are to frustrate that purpose we must sink the U-boats. We did not get rid of the cruiser-corsair by convoying cur merchantmen, but by capturing: the enemy's oversea basesand systematically sys-tematically hunting down his ships. |
