In the Bight

From a handful of bare facts, neutral naval observers last week pieced together a story: Through the mine-strewn, net-hung waters of Helgoland Bight two divisions (three or four ships each) of British submarines made their way fortnight ago. Their highly risky mission was to sneak up and pot-shoot German warboats anchored at their bases, perhaps to intercept a squadron sallying out of harbor. One division belonged to the 640-ton Swordfish class. Two of its ships were the Seahorse and Starfish. The other division belonged to the 540-ton Unity class. One of its ships was the Undine.

Last week the German High Command announced that "defensive measures" had destroyed the Starfish and the Undine. The British Admiralty soon capped this by admitting that the Seahorse was also lost.

Since the British said the three ships carried 130 men & officers (about 23 over their normal complement) and the Germans announced taking alive 30 from their two known victims, it appeared that the Seahorse perished with all hands, probably after bumping a mine, that the Starfish and Undine were crippled by depth charges or caught in nets. Like Great Britain, Germany is known to use antisubmarine nets of at least three kinds: 1) of heavy 2 1/2-in. steel bars, to block a vessel's passage; 2) of chains and dangling wires, to foul submarine propellers; 3) mine nets in which a submarine, struggling to unmesh itself, makes its presence known ashore, where buttons are pushed to explode charges at the proper place along the barrier. Submarines encountering net types 1 and 2 are dispatched by depth charges from patrol ships or airplanes.

The loss of 100 submariners was the British Navy's heaviest in one engagement since Deutschland sank Rawalpindi (259 lives). The loss of three submarines (plus the 1,354-ton Oxley sunk by accident last autumn) left her with 65 of the 69 she had when war began. Added to France's 78, this leaves the Allies well ahead of Germany's pre-war total of 65 U-boats.

Last week the Frankfurt radio station made Germany's first admission of her U-boat losses: 35. Unless work has progressed far more rapidly than is believed on the swarm of 150-tonners which the Nazis are reported mass-producing, the Allies have still the larger submarine fleet--but less opportunity to use it to advantage. The sending of groups of submarines, not merely isolated raiders, on the "particularly hazardous service" of raiding Helgoland Bight, revealed the Admiralty's anxiety to press the sea war home to Germany before spring comes.

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