Who Is Winning?

The U.S. people no longer wondered whether the U.S. was in. They wondered now whether the U.S. was winning.

From the established evidence it did not look as if the U.S. Navy, famous for equipment and famous for morale, was making a very good start in winning the Battle of the Atlantic. On the docket for all to see were the sinking of the Reuben James (see col. 2), the nicking of the Kearny, the near missing of the Greer. If the crack U.S. Navy had exacted any price from the enemy, it was not public knowledge.

No less a pair of authorities than the Secretary of the Navy and its Commander in Chief last week told the U.S. people that even when the Navy had sunk German submarines, the sinking would not become public knowledge (see p. 17).

> Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said: "Great Britain has been in the war a long time. The Germans have been attacking them with submarines for a long time. Obviously, the British have sunk a great many subs, but the public has heard very little about them. We will be governed by the same policy. If it seems best strategically not to reveal a sinking, we won't reveal it."

> President Roosevelt, when questioned on sinkings, would not answer. But he told a little parable: One day in the last war he had flown over the Bay of Biscay in a French blimp. He had taken the controls himself for a bit. The next day the blimp thought it saw a submarine on the seafloor near Penmarch Point, where a U-boat had periodically attacked shipping entering the Loire's mouth. The blimp put down a buoy. Airplanes and sub-chasers dropped depth charges. An oil slick showed, but the Allies did not claim a submarine. After the war divers went down off Penmarch Point, and there they found a submarine.

German submarines have been known to release oil to make the supposedly telltale slick; they may even put up some wreckage to throw pursuers off the trail. And even if slicks and wreckage were genuine, it would be harder on German crew morale if U-boats simply disappeared with never a word as to where, when, how.

In short it is possible that the Navy has drawn blood. But apparently the Navy is not sure.

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