A Better Month

The Luftwaffe, weather-bound through most of last week, got over England's east coast long enough one night to drop paper weapons. The Germans thought that the downcurve in British morale (TIME, June 16) was steep enough so that some Britons could be persuaded into a mood of utter defeat. So the Luftwaffe scattered leaflets of pessimism:

The Battle of the Atlantic is being lost. The reasons why are:

German U-boats, German bombers, the German Fleet sink or seriously damage between them each month a total of 700,00 to 1,000,000 tons of British and Allied shipping. All attempts at finding a satisfactory means of defense . . . have failed disastrously. . . . Even President Roosevelt openly stated that, for every five ships sunk by Germany, Britain and America can build only two new ones.

Britain herself can support only 40% of her population from her own resources. . . . If the war is continued until 1942, 60% of the population of Britain will starve. Whether starvation comes this year or the beginning of next does not make a ha'p'orth of difference.

That the Battle of the Atlantic was still going badly for Britain was incontestable. That three Britons out of five would starve by the end of this year or the beginning of next did not necessarily follow. The Battle of the Atlantic was still largely a battle of munitions, rather than rations --though food supply might soon become an important, eventually a desperate, problem.

Even the battle of munitions seemed to be easing a little. Though half of June had passed, the British Government had not at week's end officially announced merchant shipping losses for May. Winston Churchill informally stated that May losses "might be around 344,000 tons." Late news of sinkings was expected to bring this total to about 360,000 tons. This would make May the best month since February (March sinkings 487,000 tons, April's 489,000 tons). Just as some of April's sinkings were losses in the evacuation from Greece, some of May's were in the evacuation from Crete.

This improvement in the Atlantic was due to increased vigilance by the British and increased aid from the U.S. Winston Churchill publicly confirmed last week the fact that capital ships were taking a hand in convoying. The U.S. network of naval patrols was simplifying and lessening the British zones of operation.

Furthermore, the British claimed successes against German shipping. If they sank only one-half of the 257,000 tons of German bottoms they claimed for May, still they were doing well. The Admiralty announced that naval forces had tracked down and sunk seven enemy naval auxiliaries--six supply ships and a trawler which had been used to service surface raiders.

The Air Ministry announced that Sir Philip Bennet Joubert de la Ferte had been given charge of the Coastal Command, succeeding Sir Frederick ("Ginger") Bowhill, assigned to organize the flying of U.S. planes to Britain. Appointment of genial Sir Philip pleased the British who knew him for his peppy BBC talks which told them more about the R.A.F. than they ever read in the newspapers. Credited with being largely responsible for the development of effective night-fighting equipment, Sir Philip was expected to step up Coastal Command attacks on enemy shipping, and he immediately launched an intensified campaign.

The rest of the R.A.F. contributed in its way to the battle of supply. The Fighter Command's magnificent efforts by night conspired with the weather to keep heavy German assaults off. This meant that for the fifth successive week British ports were free to function to the limit of their somewhat tangled capacities. This speeded up the turnabout of traffic--as great a bottleneck as sinkings. The Bomber Command meanwhile worked at its job of tightening German bottlenecks, by bombing key industries in the plant-packed Ruhr for five successive nights--when the weather was too rough for the Luftwaffe.

These factors had not yet accumulated into a major encouragement. They did not yet comprise a turning point. But they added up to a beginning.

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