The German Marine Office has issued a detailed table, showing the nuunber of T-boats built and destroyed during 1914-18. This German table, when reed in conjunction with the highly detailed British White Paper "Merchant Shipping (Losses)," gives us, at last, a com-B-boat otmpaign during the whole lete and accurate summary of the
war. The Chairman of the U.S. Engineering Committee of the Submarine Defence Association informed a New York correspondent that Germany commenced the wat with 86 submarines. This is not so; the German Marine Office says that 28 boats were in service on August 4, i914—a figure confirmed by the independent testimony of German naval officers and our own intel! gence. Down to the end of 1914, the German shipyards finished three new submarines, but five were destroyed, while 2,850 tons of British shipping were sunk by the hostile underwater boats during August-December, 1914, U-Boat Losses, YEAR BY YEAR.
On January 1, 1915, Germany had %6 submarines in service. In the ensuing 12 months 62 new boats were added and 20 were destroyed, the net increase for the year being 42 boats. About 748,000 tons gross of British shipping were destroyed.
January, 1916, opened with Germany in the possession of 68 submarines actually in service. During the year 95 new boats were completed, but only 20 were destroyed. the net increase in German boats was therefore 70. British shipping destroyed amounted to about 888,600 tons -gross. The meagre results of our anti-submarine measures in that year allo ed Germany to increase her flotillas by a little over 100 per cent., with the result that we reaped the whirlwind in 1917, The year 1917 will ever be remem-hered as the "Black Year" of the U-boat. campaign. Germany commenced this period with 138 completed sub-surface craft. During this year 103 new boats were finished, but under Lord Jellicoe's direction our anti-submarine campaign became formidable; 72 U-boats were destroyed. Still, the with Germany in the pi 36 further submarines, as a net advance. About 3,325,000 tons of British shipping were sunk.
On January 1, 1918, Germany had 169 U-boats in service. Down to the Armistice Day she built and completed 81 extra boats, but in the same period we destroyed exactly 81 boats too. Sir Eric Geddes' was therefore quite correct in anvouncing, during the last few months of the war, that we had the Cerman submarine campaign held. All the efforts of the German shipyards failed to add a single boat the enemy's fleet in the last months of war. The 1918 toll of our shipping was about 1,768,000 tons gross.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.