Supplementary Report

The Allies lost at least 16 ships in their maritime invasion of North Africa. Last week Washington and London issued their first reports on the month-old landing operation.

Washington admitted: five U.S. transports totaling 53,000 tons sunk by submarines off Casablanca, Rabat and Algiers. The five, which went down with wartime paint and wartime names, were once well-known passenger ships: American Export Line's Excalibur and Exeter, American President Line's President Cleveland and President Pierce and Grace Line's luxury liner Santa Lucia. Casualties were "very small," said Washington.

London admitted: losses at Oran and Algiers included the Netherlands destroyer Isaac Sweers, the small British aircraft carrier Avenger (a Lend-Lease converted U.S. merchant ship), three British destroyers, five other small vessels and two ex-U.S. Coast Guard cutters, the Walney and Hartland, which, licked by flames, crashed through a boom at Oran into the inner harbor and landed troops before they sank.

The score was not final. First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander, confining himself to British losses of warships, declined to reveal how many British supply ships and transports had been sunk. Let the enemy rely "on his false claims as in the past," said Alexander. All losses were "considerably less than expected." On the basis of these first reports, they were only 2% of the 850-ship armada that made the attack.

As the battle of supply rose in intensity (see p. 34), the British avenged their losses. By week's end Royal Navy cruisers, destroyers, submarines and Allied planes had accounted for 20 Axis merchantmen and three escorting destroyers, all trying to run the gantlet from Italian bases to North Africa.

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