Attack by Sea

East Coast shipping was paralyzed. From Portland, Me. to Key West, coastal shipping was for all intents and purposes at a standstill. Axis submarines, operating from Newfoundland to South America, had attacked and sunk an estimated 213 vessels since Pearl Harbor. On the Senate floor Maine's Brewster announced that sinkings have been at the rate of more than a ship a day. By week's end at least nine ships had been stricken in the Gulf, some within sight of land. Louisianians gaped at ambulances loading up with survivors.

Censorship thick as a Grand Banks fog hid the facts of the battle. But the sights and sounds which filtered through-tight-lipped admissions by the Navy, torpedoes crashing into merchant hulls, the screams of young seamen frying in naming seas of oil--told the people all they needed to know. The question no longer was how the Battle of the Atlantic Coast was going. The first phase was over. The U.S. had been licked all along its Eastern Seaboard.

From Hartford, Conn, came evidence: a bleak report that claims against insurance companies for marine losses since Jan. i totaled $73,000,000 for ships and cargoes (TIME, April 27). This exceeded by $17,000,000 the premiums paid, and almost wiped out all marine-insurance profits of the past 22 years. The Government braced itself to assume the risks. The House passed an appropriation increasing to $250,000,000 a Federal ship-insurance fund.

Where Is the Navy? People had to get along with less gasoline, cut down on sugar and bananas, eat less chocolate, drink less coffee. Said Columnist Clapper: "The time may be close at hand when the Administration will be called to sharp accounting for the poor showing in meeting the submarine menace on our Eastern Coasts." Congress started to investigate.

Plenty of well-informed critics began to rake the U.S. Navy from stem to stern. The Navy, they complained, was slow, was not smart. But three months ago, when isolationist voices yammered for the recall of "our depleted fleet" to protect U.S. shores, Washington had made its strategy clear:

Said President Roosevelt then: "We must all understand . . . our job now is to fight at distances which extend all around the globe. ..." The Navy's big and main job was to punch its convoys through to England, Ireland, Russia, Eritrea. The Coasts would have to stand and take attacks. If the U.S. followed the 'fatuous policy" of the isolationists, its Allies would be crippled.

By Default. Now the East Coast was under attack. Just as surely as if New York City was being raided from the air, war had been brought to U.S. shores. The attack was aimed at the nation's morale as well as its supplies.

Washington had made its decision and refused to be drawn into the Nazi trap. The East Coast battle was let go by default. The movement of only a few essential war materials was being interrupted by the U-boat campaign. Enough gasoline for the war effort--if not for ordinary uses--could be transported by rail. Until adequate anti-submarine patrols could be organized without diverting men and ships from the primary military job of convoying, Americans would have to pull in their belts and take it.

Ways & Means. With convoys out of the question because warships are more needed elsewhere, the best answer to U-boats on the coast is the blimp, which can patrol an area of 2,000 square miles every twelve hours, spot Hitler's sharks even at depths of 70 feet, hover over them and rain down death in depth charges. Three blimp stations are already in operation along the East Coast. Others are building, waiting mainly on slow blimp production. Sub-chasers are being rapidly built; so are PT boats for inshore work.

Meanwhile drastic plans for moving aliens inland from the East Coast are being considered. Officials are convinced that spies are signaling U-boats from the shore, sending word of ship movements. The Army clamped down harder on dim-outs, trying to wipe out the "loom" of shore lights, still silhouetting ships for the nightly kills. In the end, losses on the coast will be halted.

Terrible Need. A month ago, the President declared: "We have dispatched strong forces of our Army & Navy, several hundred thousand of them, to bases and battlefronts thousands of miles from home."

Americans are now on at least 25 separate fronts. Most of them were carried by sea. Under convoy, cargo vessels carried war supplies over supply lines totaling some 50,000 perilous nautical miles. Indications were that convoys were getting through with losses of less than 1%. For this, the U.S. Navy deserved high marks. Where the Navy is operating, it is protecting the ships.

Nonetheless Washington also had to worry over the shortage of cargo carriers to take supplies overseas. The terrible need was still for more ships. Production had outstripped transportation. At one East Coast port 40,000 military trucks waited and waited for ships to carry them.

Air Freight. One answer, already partly under way, was air freight. Grover Loening, outstanding aeronautical engineer, said last week that the ultimate solution was planes. Some 20,000,000 tons of cargo capacity, said he, could be retired in three years by 40,000 Big transports.

In Baltimore Glenn L. Martin's Mars was a preliminary answer. The Mars, with a hull as big as a 15-room house, can carry 125 fully equipped soldiers plus a 13 1/2-ton tank. Ready for construction is a ship almost twice that size, an unnamed 250,000-lb. giant of the air. In the back of Mr. Martin's mind: a 500,000-lb. leviathan. All over the U.S., last week, C-33s transported troops; big C46 transports for troops and freight were building. The Ferrying Command now delivers small freight to Britain, Africa, Australia, China.

Loening, looking into the future, saw New York shaken out of its commanding trade position, envisaged the Panama Canal as a ditch of no importance as the world's cargoes moved through the clouds. The difficulty, of course, was the immediate lack of 40,000 B-19s. So the problem is still up to Admiral Emory S. Land's War Shipping Administration.

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