Lord's Admissions

In a war where adversaries are hardly at grips, it is hard to grip war's facts. Most tangible important fact of last week was the statement (upon being landed safely in Great Britain) of Captain F. C. P. Harris of the freighter Clement, sunk early last month off South America's east coast. Captain Harris and his first engineer, W. Bryant, certified that the Nazi raider which kept them aboard five hours after sinking their Clement was the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. This identity could still be doubted by people who know that German sailors wear bogus hatbands some of the time, to confuse their victims; but English freighter captains and Scottish engineers are hard to fool.

Next most important claim of last week was that the British Home Fleet was not in Scapa Flow; had not been there, in good probability, since before Royal Oak was sunk by Lieut. Commander Guenther Prien's submarine raid. Testator to this probability was First Flying Lieutenant Hermann von Buelow of the German Air Force, who explained in Berlin that the air raid on Scapa Flow, three days after Royal Oak was torpedoed, was a "cleanup job" left to his crowd by the Nazi naval arm. Said he:

"We found hardly anything worth bombing. When we appeared over Scapa Flow, we found it deserted. The entire British Fleet had fled from the harbor to west English ports or more distant points.* We had to be content with an attack on the Iron Duke in order not to return home without having carried out any actions. .. .

"It is not our fault that we cannot find more of the British Fleet. . . . The German Air Force has been searching for large units of the British Fleet in and near the North Sea and east English ports, but no such units are to be found any longer."

First Lieutenant Billow's testimony (he also said no British warship had, to his knowledge, been sunk by a Nazi bombing plane) was the more impressive when corroborated by no less a warrior than First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. For four weeks an Admiralty commission had chewed its cud over Royal Oak's sinking in Scapa Flow. Last week Churchill stood up, with even more than his usual show of nimble-wittedness, and admitted for himself and the Admiralty that:

1) Scapa Flow's defenses were weak when war was declared.

2) They were being strengthened, but the last "blockship," which was to have been sunk athwart a channel to complete the Flow's blockade, did not arrive until the day after Royal Oak was torpedoed.

3) Most of the Fleet was out of the Flow that fatal night.*

4) When the first torpedo struck, most of Royal Oak's officers & men scurried to battle stations beneath the ship's armor, thinking a plane must be bombing; a submarine attack was unthinkable.

Admiral Sir Roger Keyes (hero of the night-blockading of Zeebrugge in 1918) arose in all humility to second First Lord Churchill. Said he:

"Undoubtedly, Scapa Flow was not submarine-proof and it would have been submarine-proof, in my opinion--and I am sure it is the opinion of the whole service --if Mr. Churchill had been in office a few months before the war. There would have been no question of any state of unpreparedness in any of our ports."

(This was passing the buck, perhaps rightly but certainly with neatness, to Mr. Churchill's immediate predecessor, Earl Stanhope.)

The House of Commons heckled penitent Mr. Churchill a bit, but also it listened gladly to other statements with which he barraged his admissions. Members heard that he had just returned from a trip to France to persuade the French Navy to send its two speedy battle-cruisers, Dunkerque and Strasbourg (designed and built precisely to catch and destroy pocket battleships), out after Deutschland and Admiral Scheer. Reports from South Atlantic waters soon evidenced new activity by both French and British navies. Satisfied that they had something to chase, they were out in force scouring the seas, putting in here & there when necessary for fuel and water. Ships reported by name were the British Achilles, Cumberland and Ajax. No fresh attacks by Scheer or Deutschland were reported, suggesting either that their fuel was low or they were lying low. In Mexico, one of a pair of carrier pigeons (a hawk got the other) was reported brought in by an Indian with a German naval commander's code message on its leg. Mexicans said they knew a secret radio was operating south of Mexico City, probably helping German raiders or supply ships.

> Mr. Churchill made his weekly speech about the effectiveness of the effective British blockade of Germany's munitions and commodity supply lines. The tonnage figures sounded good to Parliament (see p. 21), and so did his announcement that since war began Great Britain has been able to triple the number of her submarine hunters. Last August -L-11,000,000 was appropriated for construction of small anti-submarine craft.

> Helping Mr. Churchill's very proud but none too agile Royal Navy last week were two of the three escapist destroyers of the Polish Navy. They joined in a North Sea gunning match with several Nazi airplanes. In the skirmish, nobody got hurt.

> The Admiralty reported the loss of two more warboats: the submarine Oxley, by "accidental explosion," with 53 dead (out of 54); Northern Rover, a former trawler, "overdue . . . missing . . . lost."

* In World War I, Admiral Jellicoe moved the Fleet from dangerous Scapa Flow to Belfast, Ireland. * Unofficial report is that the Admiralty had warning that some sort of raid was imminent, moved the Fleet out just in time. In his weekend oration (see p. 21), Mr. Churchill declared the Fleet "awaited their attack in the Firth of Forth during the last week."

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