hiliiiii 11 - 3 9002 11326 1425 || r SEA POWER’S DAILY TASKThis battleship is a fine example of the strength, swiftness and striking-power of the capital ships of the British Navy. SEA POWER’SBritain’s merchant ships are ready DAILY TASK It is sometimes hard to realise the key importance of sea power in the inevitable tide towards victory. This is perhaps because the theatre of war in which Britain’s Royal Navy operates is so vast, it covers all that four-fifths of the earth’s surface which is salt water. The type and scope of its daily operations are diverse, yet more often than not they are unobtrusive. It is hard, even, to correlate spectacular naval victories such as Taranto, Cape Matapan, the sinking of the “ Bismarck,” or the Coral Sea battle, with the gradual imposition of an im- placable stranglehold on Germany and the Axis Powers. This is because the long-range effects of such engagements are not clearly or immediately apparent in the general strategical 3picture of a world at war. How much more easy, then, it becomes to overlook the cumulative effect of the innumerable, day-to-day, almost humdrum duties which the Royal Navy carries out without fuss or fault over the widest spaces of the ocean ! Wherever the conflict on land spreads, on any of the great Continental masses—Europe and Asia, Africa, Australia or America—basically, sea power still controls the issue. Sea power controls every phase of supply, controls access to, and shipment of, raw materials, controls movements of troops—the very crux of battle waits on naval co-operation in some form or other. Thus Britain and the other United Nations, through great weight of sea power, are enabled to build up strength and in their own time take the initiative in a hundred ways denied to the largely landlocked European Axis Powers. Sea power has enabled us to munition the Soviets on a formidable scale ; to transport and supply great armies to India and the Middle East; to garrison and hold such important points as Malta, Iceland, Gibraltar ; and at the same time to keep open all the lines of communication and supply from America and the rest of the world. The task of the Navy is one of considerable magnitude. The area of combat on land, widespread as it is, is by its very nature circumscribed. But the area of conflict and of vigi- lance on the sea is virtually unlimited. Ocean trade routes must be kept open for traffic, coasts and narrow seas closely watched, minefields swept, the menace of air raiders, surface raiders, and U-boats steadfastly and resolutely met. There is no place and no time where and when the Navy can relax for a day from active offensive or defensive operations involving hundreds of warships, great and small. 4Convoys of every size............................ There are never less than some 2,200 British merchant ships on the high seas, and of these 1,800 belong to the United Kingdom. In addition, fleets of other Allied and neutral trading vessels ply to and fro. To protect this great concourse of shipping, carrying as it does the very life blood of the Allies’ war about the seaways of the world, a force of more than 600 ships of the Royal Navy, backed by the Fleet Air Arm and the R.A.F. Coastal Command, is always at sea. The Convoy system, which was in use in the Napoleonic wars, was re-introduced by the British in the Great War. Undoubtedly, it was one of the main factors that brought about the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918. To-day, the convoy system has been improved and extended in scope and scale. Its success is beyond all question, as will be proved by the figures quoted in the following short account of this particular facet of the Navy’s work. Since the outbreak of hostilities tens of thousands of ships have been convoyed to and from ports in this country and between points overseas. Of all this great armada the losses have been about one-half of one per cent. Out of every 200 ships that have sailed across the dangerous seas, one A large British convoy comes safely to port, under the protection of the Royal Navy.hundred and ninety-nine have arrived safely in port with their precious cargoes of food and men, arms, aircraft, tanks and munitions. Considered in the light of the staggering quan- tities of goods shipped (over 200 million tons of shipping have been convoyed, representing a carrying capacity of approxi- mately 300 million tons of cargo) and of the weight of the opposition forces in ceaseless action, the achievement may well be looked upon by the landsman as little short of miraculous. Every Allied ship that leaves port is a mark, nay, an important prize, for the enemy, and the Navy must be vigilant against attacks of any type in every kind of circumstance. German long-distance reconnaissance and bombing aircraft, working far out at sea, are constantly on the look-out for convoys or individual ships, attacking them directly or guiding the U-boats by wireless to find their quarry. Nearer home waters, shore-based dive-bombers, E boats and other surface craft are waiting to pounce. In , addition there is the danger of mines and f the threat of chance encounter with t some raiding warship. Yet the Navy brings the convoys, large and small, safely through. The success of those convoys bearing much- needed tanks and supplies to the Soviets has been a particularly sharp thorn in Germany’s side. Up to the early pa rt of 1942 only one ship had been lost on this duty. Aircraft, muni- tions, raw materials— almost everything sched- uled or promised has been landed at Russian ports. 00 0 / //# / 0 ft * f -0 ' 4# /tit 0*fft tt' ft 4 !l\ 0 I r, 9 0 0 0 6Supplies to the Middle East have also been on a tre- mendous scale. In Egyptian ports alone over 3,000,000 tons of military stores, including a million tons of food, have been landed. The problem of supply to this region is one of exceptional danger and difficulty. Therefore, when in 1941 it was decided to open a yet more effective offensive front against the Axis in Africa, 300 ships were employed continuously on the long voyage round the Cape to carry the necessary men, equipment and stores. This journey is equal to more than 50 journeys from Istanbul to Ankara. Over a million tons of war material and 30,000 vehicles were transhipped. The machine-like efficiency of this remarkable feat of planning and organisation can be more strikingly assessed when it is realised that, on this long and arduous route, an average ship can make only three voyages in the year. Due in no small measure to the high factor of safety in transit which British sea power guarantees, Britain has been able to afford ship space to send overseas for many months past 80 per cent, of her total military production. In one single month (October 1941) British ships carried 23,000 army vehicles, 1,300 aircraft, over 400,000 tons of military and air stores, and in addition some hundreds of locomotives. And this despite the fact that the British Isles were under constant threat of invasion. TANKS PLANES VEHICLES Britain’s convoys pass along the World’s sea- routes, carrying troops, equipment and stores. TANKS FOOD 7Wartime exports and imports = 25 TANKS EACH IMPORTS It is not generally realised that Britain is exporting far more weapons of war than she imports. For example: during 9 44444 44444 44444 44444 EACH »4 = 100 PLANES 44.4-4-4-4.4.4-4.4. 4444444444 4444444444 4444444444 4444444444 4444444444 4.4.4.44.4.4.4.4.4. 4444444444 4.4.4.44.4.4.4.4.4. 1941 she sent out of the United Kingdom 9,781 aircraft, as compared with 2,134 brought in. In the same period she ex- ported 3,000 tanks, but im- ported only 200. For the greater part of 1942 she will continue to export far more than she im- ports. 8Troop movements Convoy of armaments, supplies, tanks and war vehicles is not the only task to be successfully accomplished by Britain’s command of the seas. Great troop dispositions have to be made quietly, punctually. No cheering crowds greet or bid Bon Voyage to the modern army as it is shipped from place to place, but with secrecy and speed, from camouflaged docks or improvised landing stages, by troop carriers and small vessels, tremendous numbers of men and their equipment are moved in accordance with strategic demands. Perhaps a garrison in some small island must be relieved, some base raided, perhaps a Commando unit must be ferried to and from its appointed rendezvous, or there may be a full dress campaign requiring the shipment of many tens of thousands of men. Every week, every day, the Navy is called upon to play its vital part in all these important offensive movements. In an average month’s assignments it will have to carry, all over the world, about a quarter of a million men. Men of Britain’s Royal Air Force disem- bark from a troopship in the Middle East.Food and raw materials Running concurrently with the mass shipment of weapons and the movement of personnel, the Navy must keep guard over the ever-swelling flood of imports of raw materials for industry, and of essential foodstuffs necessary to supplement the giant efforts of British agriculture. For this work, above all other commitments, the Atlantic lifeline must be kept intact and inviolable so that British staying-power and British striking- power can be continuously reinforced and amplified from the farms, workshops and arsenals of the Americas. 10The naval offensive against Axis shipping The success of the Navy’s drive to nullify and crush the German attempt to blockade Britain is apparent not only in the figures of German losses, but also in the progressively growing strength of Britain’s armaments and, even more strikingly so, in the demeanour of Britain’s active, happy, healthy, hardworking people. A whole population is mobilised willingly for the war effort, is amply fed, well and warmly clothed—everywhere men, women and children are eager to play to the full their part in the struggle that lies ahead. Sea power ensures the con- tinuation of this well-being by striking against Axis shipping whenever and wherever it may be found, delivering blows that find their way right to the very heart of the German Reich and the whole Axis structure. Because of British naval power, Britain’s foes must be more and more strictly rationed in the necessities of life, they must be coerced, often forced, to work, and to work longer and harder, even to the pitch of exhaustion. What has happened to the Axis navies ? German surface warships are largely kept to their bases or in their home waters, and it is mainly the submarines which venture forth. The Italian Navy is rarely to be seen in its so-called “ Mare Nostrum.” It has learned that it is wise to avoid contact at all costs. Even in its harbours it cannot rest safe from attack. Japan, entering the war at a time which gave her utmost scope for her offensive in the Far East, is one of the world’s 11major naval Powers. Yet Japan’s naval blows have been parried by Allied sea power in those distant waters. Japan’s destiny is inextricably bound up with that of the Germans and Italians. Their defeat would bring against Japan’s naval power a superior Allied strength. And the Axis merchantmen, what of them? They sail at their constant peril—and they know it. During 1941 2,500,000 tons of Axis shipping has been captured, sunk or disabled, and 22 enemy converted merchant raiders put out of harm’s way. Few enemy vessels dare attempt to run the gauntlet of the British blockade. Of those that do, over half are intercepted by units of the Royal Navy, the Fleet Air Arm or the R.A.F. Coastal Command. In all, since the beginning of this war, over 5^ million tons of Axis merchant shipping has been sunk or severely damaged. In major sea engage- ments Britain has sunk three enemy capital ships, 13 cruisers, 53 destroyers, many dozens of submarines and countless smaller naval auxiliaries. Slowly, but none the less inevitably, the grip of Britain’s A deadly weapon of the Royal Navy. This Failure of an attempt to run the British is the intricate mechanism of a torpedo. blockade by a disguised German ship.A British submarine, home again after a most successful patrol. sea power exerts its limitless strength. Sinking or capturing raiders on the high seas ; commandeering cargoes of essential supplies bound for hard-pressed Germany; pinning down important capital ships; hampering supply ships as they attempt to service Axis troops overseas. All the time on the offensive, attacking—attacking—and again attacking. Last moments of an Italian supply ship, sunk by the Royal Navy. 13U nterseebooten Against the U-boats the Navy has directed the full fury and science of its attack. So much do they fear the skill of the Navy that they go to work in packs. But even this expedient cannot save them. Spotted by patrolling air- craft, harried with bombs and with depth charges, driven desperate by attacks with other devices from British des- troyers, corvettes and motor torpedo-boats, the expectation of operational life by each submarine launched becomes perceptibly shorter and shorter. Build as she may for dear life, Germany cannot obtain the mastery she dreamed possible with these marauders. On February 10th, 1942, there were 1,276 U-boat prisoners in this country—how many more of Germany’s highly trained seamen lie at the bottom of the sea cannot yet be calculated. A German U-boat, caught in a „ relentless hail of fire from an R.A.F. flying boat. Members of the crew of a sunken German submarine are helped aboard a British ship.Torpedo bombers of the Royal Navy over a British cruiser. Naval power plus the Naval Air Arm What happened when the “ Bismarck ” put to sea is familiar history to all, and illustrates clearly how the two weapons of sea power and air power complement and supple- ment each other. The accuracy and hitting power of British naval gunnery are traditional. Their roots go deep in the sea- faring blood of the British race. To this formidable weapon is now added the dash and daring of the young and virile naval air arm. Aircraft act not only as eyes for the fleet, giving it a far wider range of reconnaissance than ever before, but with bombs and aerial torpedoes they redouble the pace and weight of attack. It is this threat of joint air and sea action which keeps German and Italian warships within limited spheres of operation, and prohibits them from carrying out many sorties which the Axis high command would dearly love to make. There are yet other aspects of the British Navy’s daily work in combination with air power. At all times there must be maintained a world-wide reconnaissance over enemy ship- ping movements, and upon concentrations of forces in coastal areas, in order to counter in good time each threat or possiblethreat. Far from usable land bases, aircraft carriers, bearing their nests of fighter planes and dive bombers, can approach ports and installations or primary centres of production. These armed mobile floating aerodromes are a potent force in attack and in fleet protection. In home waters the Coastal Command of the R.A.F. links closely with smaller Naval patrol boats to keep the English Channel, the North Sea and Irish Sea areas clear of U-boats and of enemy shipping. In addition, these scouting planes may intercept odd air raiders making some tip-and-run raid on Britain. Or they may summon shore-based “ Hurricanes,” “ Spitfires ” and “ Beau- fighters ” to the attack. There is also a watch to be kept on the huge straggling European coastline now occupied by Hitler’s troops. From the most northerly points on the coast of Norway right down to Africa, the coastline of a continent is patrolled, and efficiently patrolled, by shore-based flying boats. Particularly must a wary eye be kept on the “ invasion ports ” from which Germany hoped, and hoped in vain, to force a conquest of England two years ago. These ports are the object of constant at- tack and surveillance. Any hint of concentration of men or materials is re- ported and the appro- priate action is taken.( Ship strength l and ship building Great Britain is still the greatest naval power in the world. Her battle fleets, widely dispersed as they must needs be in the world-spread conflict, are yet the superiors of those of her enemies. Combined with the naval strength of the United Nations, the total ship and gun power is greater than that of the Axis. Expressed as a percentage of the strength of all belligerent nations, Britain and her Allies possess 62 % of the battleships, 64 % of the aircraft carriers, 72 % of the cruisers and 69 % of the destroyers and torpedo boats. But, even with this lead and superiority, Britain needs to build warships and merchant ships at an ever-increasing rate. And she can and does build them. There in her island base Britain has the shipyards, the materials, and the skilled man- power which have in past years built ships for every maritime nation and which are now carrying through the greatest ship- building programme in history. In the last quarter of 1941 Britain completed four times as much naval tonnage as in the last quarter before the war and twice the tonnage of merchant shipping. The labour force employed in this work has been doubled since the beginning of the war. Dockers, too, are contributing their share to the effort for more and yet more shipping space, by reducing the turn- round of ships in their ports on an average by 2\ days, which is equal to nearly 1,500,000 additional tons of merchant ships. Naval fighter-bombers, ranged on the deck of an aircraft carrier. 17Towards the future The outcome of all these unstinted efforts, all this daring and selfless bravery, this sheer, unquenchable doggedness of the men who make and the men who man Britain’s ships—the sum total of the Navy’s countless daily tasks—of this there can be no question ; no doubting of the final reckoning. Sea power will in the end exert its crushing, throttling effects. True, there may be a few outstanding or decisive battle actions. There will certainly be none of those dramatic advances or retreats which spotlight the course of the war on land. There will possibly be nothing exact or tangible that one can put the finger on and say “ this was the stroke that led directly to Germany’s defeat.” Yet all the time, by simply keeping on unshakably with its multitude of appointed jobs, inexorably, inevitably, the work of Britain’s Royal Navy will have proved a vital factor in the ultimate victory of the Democracies. 18A sea-going vessel takes shape in a British ship-yard. As dawn breaks over the Atlantic, British destroyers put to sea, to carry on their daily task of hunting down the Nazi U-boats. Printed in England by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne and Co. Ltd. London—51—2908picture of a world at war. How much more easy, then, it becomes to overlook the cumulative effect of the innumerable, day-to-day, almost humdrum duties which the Royal Navy carries out without fuss or fault over the widest spaces of the ocean ! Wherever the conflict on land spreads, on any of the great Continental masses—Europe and Asia, Africa, Australia or America—basically, sea power still controls the issue. Sea power controls every phase of supply, controls access to, and shipment of, raw materials, controls movements of troops—the very crux of battle waits on naval co-operation in some form or other. Thus Britain and the other United Nations, through great weight of sea power, are enabled to build up strength and in their own time take the initiative in a hundred ways denied to the largely landlocked European Axis Powers. Sea power has enabled us to munition the Soviets on a formidable scale ; to transport and supply great armies to India and the Middle East; to garrison and hold such important points as Malta, Iceland, Gibraltar ; and at the same time to keep open all the lines of communication and supply from America and the rest of the world. The task of the Navy is one of considerable magnitude. The area of combat on land, widespread as it is, is by its very nature circumscribed. But the area of conflict and of vigi- lance on the sea is virtually unlimited. Ocean trade routes must be kept open for traffic, coasts and narrow seas closely watched, minefields swept, the menace of air raiders, surface raiders, and U-boats steadfastly and resolutely met. There is no place and no time where and when the Navy can relax for a day from active offensive or defensive operations involving hundreds of warships, great and small. Convoys of every size............................ There are never less than some 2,200 British merchant ships on the high seas, and of these 1,800 belong to the United Kingdom. In addition, fleets of other Allied and neutral trading vessels ply to and fro. To protect this great concourse of shipping, carrying as it does the very life blood of the Allies war about the seaways of the world, a force of more than 600 ships of the Royal Navy, backed by the Fleet Air Arm and the R.A.F. Coastal Command, is always at sea. The Convoy system, which was in use in the Napoleonic wars, was re-introduced by the British in the Great War. Undoubtedly, it was one of the main factors that brought about the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918. To-day, the convoy system has been improved and extended in scope and scale. Its success is beyond all question, as will be proved by the figures quoted in the following short account of this particular facet of the Navy’s work. Since the outbreak of hostilities tens of thousands of ships have been convoyed to and from ports in this country and between points overseas. Of all this great armada the losses have been about one-half of one per cent. Out of every 200 ships that have sailed across the dangerous seas, one A large British convoy comes safely to port, under the protection of the Royal Navy.hundred and ninety-nine have arrived safely in port with their precious cargoes of food and men, arms, aircraft, tanks and munitions. Considered in the light of the staggering quan- tities of goods shipped (over 200 million tons of shipping have been convoyed, representing a carrying capacity of approxi- mately 300 million tons of cargo) and of the weight of the opposition forces in ceaseless action, the achievement may well be looked upon by the landsman as little short of miraculous. Every Allied ship that leaves port is a mark, nay, an important prize, for the enemy, and the Navy must be vigilant against attacks of any type in every kind of circumstance. German long-distance reconnaissance and bombing aircraft, working far out at sea, are constantly on the look-out for convoys or individual ships, attacking them directly or guiding the U-boats by wireless to find their quarry. Nearer home waters, shore-based dive-bombers, E boats and other surface craft are waiting to pounce. In 0 addition there is the danger of mines and { the threat of chance encounter with I some raiding warship. Yet the % Navy brings the convoys, large and small, safely through. The success of those ^ convoys bearing much- needed tanks and supplies to the Soviets has been a particularly sharp thorn in Germany’s side. Up to the early part of 1942 only t one ship had been lost on this duty. Aircraft, muni- tions, raw materials— almost everything sched- uled or promised has been landed at Russian ports. --4 / s/t / //# Sj fi * !* i%0 ii\ » « 0 0 0 0 6 Supplies to the Middle East have also been on a tre- mendous scale. In Egyptian ports alone over 3,000,000 tons of military stores, including a million tons of food, have been landed. The problem of supply to this region is one of exceptional danger and difficulty. Therefore, when in 1941 it was decided to open a yet more effective offensive front against the Axis in Africa, 300 ships were employed continuously on the long voyage round the Cape to carry the necessary men, equipment and stores. This journey is equal to more than 50 journeys from Istanbul to Ankara. Over a million tons of war material and 30,000 vehicles were transhipped. The machine-like efficiency of this remarkable feat of planning and organisation can be more strikingly assessed when it is realised that, on this long and arduous route, an average ship can make only three voyages in the year. Due in no small measure to the high factor of safety in transit which British sea power guarantees, Britain has been able to afford ship space to send overseas for many months past 80 per cent, of her total military production. In one single month (October 1941) British ships carried 23,000 army vehicles, 1,300 aircraft, over 400,000 tons of military and air stores, and in addition some hundreds of locomotives. And this despite the fact that the British Isles were under constant threat of invasion. TANKS PLANES VEHICLES FOOD Britain's convoys pass along the World’s sea- X routes, carrying troops, equipment and stores. 7