Wolf War

The British Admiralty remained ominously silent last week about what Germany described as one of the war's fiercest submarine attacks. Hunting in a pack, guided to a big convoy by air reconnaissance, the U-boats were said to have hit and sunk 16, perhaps 18 ships west of Ireland, including a merchant cruiser. With other losses from scattered attacks by bombers and U-boats, this furious assault, would shoot Britain's tonnage loss for the week far above 100,000 -- if true.

Wolf Sighted. About 700 miles northeast of Montevideo, H. M. S. merchant cruiser Carnarvon Castle (20,122-ton motorship, former star of the Capetown run ) sighted a suspicious vessel, apparently a merchantman, but long, lean and low. The Britisher signaled "Stop!"' The stranger, speeding ahead, replied with a salvo of shells which neatly bracketed the Carnarvon Castle.

Captain Henry Noel Marryat Hardy, a D.S.O. and Croix de Guerre man of World War I, who returned to duty last year out of retirement in Switzerland, turned four of his eight 6-inchers loose, and tried to close, full speed. He repeatedly hit the German, who had to turn and use her port batteries when the starboard ones were evidently disabled. But the German kept on running, being a raider, not supposed to stand and fight. She had much more foot than the Carnarvon Castle's 17 knots and so, behind smoke screens, she escaped; but not before she showed signs of settling somewhat at the stern.

The Carnarvon Castle, hit 22 times, with seven dead, 24 wounded and one hole so near her water line that ballast had to be shifted to make her list away from it, plowed into Montevideo, just ten days before the anniversary of the sinking of the Graf Spee. On the way in she passed a British battle squadron in hot pursuit of the Nazi.

Disguising Raiders is a favorite sport of the Germans. Ashore in Manhattan last week was Captain Cornelius Arundele, master of the freighter Haxby, which a German raider sank off Bermuda last April. He spent 64 days aboard the enemy as a prisoner. In that time he saw her fly the Greek, Brazilian and Dutch flags. Of "much more than 10,000 tons," she had a telescopic funnel and a lot of light steel plates which she shifted like scenery, to change her silhouette from day to day. Her superstructure was repeatedly repainted. Provisioned to cruise three years, she had slipped out of Hamburg with a crew of more than 300 on April 6 while R. N. was busy rushing to Norway. She refueled from her victims and the Nazi tanker Winnetou, which she met off Africa. She carried six guns and quantities of mines, 230 of which she laid off New Zealand. "You'd be surprised," said secrecy-bound Captain Arundele, "if you knew her name.''

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