Show war front moves to N north orth atlantic sea As naz nazis s unleash bombers submarines by ROGER SHAW by western newspaper union NEW YORK this is a funny war but no longer a phoney war the phoney phase if any passe passed d with the norwegian campaign of a year ago since then things have been grimmer and grimler gri mier various fronts have evolved there are the balkans there is gibraltar there is north africa and east africa and albania there are the e fifth columns all over europe that favor german rule and the opposition fifth columns that detest german rule the treadmill of the nazi milita military ry boot then there is the hammer and the anvil phase england is the sturdy anvil germany is the vengeful hammer the spitfires Spit fires and hurricanes and heinkele Heln HeIn kels and messer fight it out in the third dimension on an aerial front such as mortal man never saw before there are Co ventries and hamburges Ham burgs and oil all manner of hapless atrocities but are these antics decisive apparently not to date london may be gutted but jt it still laughs und and goes to the movies and sings therell always be an england in berlin only houses have been damaged according to recent reports british factory power has been slowed up but the arsenal of democracy so called Is gaining momentum and hastening replacements to the scenes of insular carnage the lifeline life lifa line or of empire no longer runs up the mediterranean and on to india instead it runs run across r the north atlantic from roosevelt to churchill and back again most alost important front this is where the most important front comes in as this is written it la Is the watery U boat front the purpose of the U boat is to cut the new lifeline life line of empire nullify the tha american arsenal and leave the damaged british factories to shift for themselves as they face the hideous hammer of thor it is also intended to cut down on foodstuffs and thereby loose still another of the terrible horsemen of the vaunted apocalypse in the minds of many critics the U boat threat outweighs the balkans narth africa the late lamented Jamen ted battle of france and even eve n the airplanes it is as they say of the essence AU all this remains to be seen but the weather Is getting better which meins means that things may be getting orse the high point of the U boat threat in the world war was apryl 1917 it was the same month in which america entered the conflict there was a connection between these events but in those days the th active U boats were not too numerous seldom were there more than 30 aisea at sea at any given time they operated only from such ouch limited spots as cuch Cux cuxhaven haven and kle kiel I 1 in germany ostend in belgium and Aus old adriatic ports for the mediterranean trade in 1914 germany started the war with less than 30 submarines and perhaps 10 more in the process of building in the course of the war there was something like laid down long ir mining deeded beeh ca it takes a long time to produce and train a good U boat command ersome critics say all of five years despite the hundreds of german submarines between 1914 and 1918 half a dozen experts accounted for no less than 70 per cent of the allied ship losses naval statistics verity verify this fact all R k p p m 01 MR 0 F R W emmac 1 1 1 Winst churchill recognizes the true state of affairs ills his cry Is ever for sub fighters destroyers for or convoys 6 w V I 1 A ok N A I 1 1 0 I 1 f f J germany the only conscious of the submarines power another new addition to americas large submarine fleet Is shown being christened by mrs wilhelm friedell at vallejo calif in this war the germans have an air fleet schooled to operate cooperate co per cent with the subs of these in 1939 there were about 60 to 70 what the figure now is nobody accurately knows its on the up and up for fast streamline production has habeeb ha been introduced in thit the german germah s shipyards and in interior located factories U boats can easily be shipped about on railroad flatcars flat cars even up over the alps like cannibals Hanni bals elephants elep hents further most of the british navy is now busy in the mediterranean in the last war it was based on scot land and therefore in a far handier position than is now the case the french coast is a great griat basic convenience veni ence to hillers Hit lers admiral raeder and so are the north reach ing norwegian fjords the kaiser V f 4 c V a T E 0 f T 41 24 wv g ial 10 i A wl 11 A f V germanys germanas Germ anys outstanding submarine hero Is captain guenther prien who steered bis crift craft into scapa flow la in 1939 to sink britaina Brit ains royal oak in the first world war 79 70 per cent ol of allied ship losses were attributed to only six such experts have such an advantageous frontage the royal air force is constantly bombing german U nests along the vast coastal stretch when they might better be hammering german factories in the interior this costs men planes explosives time and money meanwhile the germans have been pop concentrating on small submarines these can be built more quickly they cost less and they are just as effective for short trips around the british isles and west of ireland another very important factor is this they require bequir e much smaller crews and submarine crews are singularly hard to train when it comes to U tactics germany may be more pressed now for umen U men than for U boats As for sub commanders to date there are no outstanding individuals except the well known gunther prien the of the second world war even churchill admires prien and has said so small craft needed what the british need is small craft to hunt the subs they have produced a sort of 0 cor corvette yette a type modeled on the fast little chasers that professional whalers chalers use today the british have lost heavily in ili shipping in the past year and a half they had never made up their losses from the last war and the fresh inroads cut seriously into the sum total of his maje tonnage the british shipyards at newcastle and glasgow and elsewhere are trying to speed up production as best they can but its far easier to sink ships than to build them and in some cases the shipyards are under aerial bombardment to boot at night there are blackouts and these delay loadings and un tin loadings in the ports the ports too have taken a terrific hammering from herr goering and in some cases their dock f are badly damaged or iven even closed up lil no longer may floodlights flood lights be used to hasten a 24 hour schedule in short the german planes dovetail nicely with the U boats and the french and scandinavian ports to produce an all round picture of ill omen amen churchill has a clear naval head he recognizes the true state of affairs he relegates subs and African dering to second or third place his cry is ever the same for the new corvettes cor for destroyers for convoys tor for submarine detection devices to catch the U boats sitting meanwhile in the german naval ranks two or three small submarines are taking the place of any single big one of the 1918 type the mutinous mermaids will soon be learning of mass production atias de deadliest a and in its most sinister fo form rm the no mans land of 1941 is the billowy north atlantic and its dough boys are old salts watch it its the present day hindenburg line |