Jap Bottoms Down

How great a toll Allied planes and submarines had exacted of Japanese merchant shipping could only be estimated from the combat-colored reports of returning pilots and submarine skippers. Last week Secretary of the Navy Knox, in a St. Patrick's Day speech in Manhattan, guessed that 1,857,000 gross tons had been sunk, out of a prewar tonnage of 6,369,000. Knox hastily added that half the probable loss had been replaced by new construction, salvage and seizure of foreign vessels in Asiatic ports. Net Jap loss: about 14% of her merchant marine.

Said an official spokesman at General MacArthur's Australian headquarters: "It would be a grave fallacy to believe that even the heavy destruction caused by our naval and air power has dangerously weakened the enemy's capacity for sea transport."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.