Torpedo Terror

In nearly six months of war the U.S. has not been able to turn the tide of its nearest battle. As the first half-year of U.S. participation in World War II drew to a close, Americans grew more & more uneasily aware that the battle of ship lanes was going unfavorably, that sinkings were on the increase, that Hitler's raiding U-boats were having a disruptive effect on the economy of a nation at war.

In the press was a new note of apprehension that the Navy was not attacking the U-boat problem with sufficiently imaginative vigor, despite the patrol planes, bombers, blimps and surface craft that are dumping bombs and depth charges wherever an enemy sub is suspected.

>Said Walter Lippmann: "Because it is necessary to improvise, it is necessary to place in command of the whole operation younger officers who are not set in their ways . . . who will seek out men who know what has been done in British waters, who by the spirit they possess will energize and inspire the whole campaign." To feed U.S. fears were harrowing ac counts of survivors landed from torpedoed ships at ports from New London to Key West, a May toll of 15 ships sunk in the Gulf alone, the spread of U-boat depredations to the coast of good-neighborly Brazil. U.S. papers, which tabulated their own totals (the Navy issues none for publication), reported that at least 241 ships had been lost off the U.S. coasts since war began. Readers feared that the sea and censorship hid even more.

No one ventured to compare losses with those of Britain's gravest hour in World War I, April 1917, when sinkings touched almost 850,000 tons, or the succeeding four months, when they averaged about 500,000 tons a month. But certainly 241 ships lost in 137 days of war meant that losses were well over replacements, since ship production has averaged little more than one a day. And losses on other sea fronts, the Murmansk route and the Pacific, must be figured in to tip the balance even more unfavorably.

Strategy of Diversion. The concentration of U-boats in American waters revealed the Axis strategy: so to disrupt shipping that naval strength would be diverted from its more vital convoy duties.

The U.S. Navy, however, stuck doggedly to its task of guarding the arteries of global warfare. Supply routes to Britain, to Russia, to Australia and to other fronts were open. As long as that was true, the United Nations still ruled the seas.

Brazilian Backfire. Hitler's U-boat campaign had backfired in one important respect. It had drawn Brazil closer to total participation in the war than any amount of diplomatic maneuvering could accomplish. Spurred by the torpedoing of seven Brazilian ships, the Brazilian Air Force joined U.S. flyers in tracking down U-boats off Brazil. By week's end Brazilian airmen were credited with sinking at least one U-boat, U.S. flyers on the scene with two more, while other sectors of the Atlantic front saw these incidents:

>Off Cuba, survivors in a lifeboat, asking a U-boat commander for water and cigarets, got this reply: "Let Mr. Roosevelt supply them."

>Captain George Hazeleaf sighted a sail on the horizon, altered course believing it a ship in distress. When he approached, the sail disappeared. Hazeleaf grew suspicious and turned tail. A U-boat gave chase, sent a torpedo crashing into his ship.

> Watchers on the New Jersey shore saw a U-boat sink a cargo ship, then watched U.S. planes and a blimp attack the sub with bombs and depth charges.

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