While the ending of the raiding career of the Admiral Graf Spee has, naturally enough, attracted the greatest amount of attention in the world press, two other feats of the British Navy have not received all the attention they deserve, for while one of them marks the scrupulous regard which the British have for the international rules governing warfare, the other clearly demonstrates that the same courage and gallantry prevails as was noticeable during the last war. The first example is that of the submarine Salmon, which, giving complete heed to the ordinary decencies of submarine warfare, passed up a chance of sinking the Bremen, because it was impossible for her to make sure that the crew of the vessel would be able to reach a place of safety, and the other is the feht of the submarine Ursula, which penetrated the mine fields off the German coast, and, in the mouth of the Elbe, accounted for the sinking of the German cruiser Koeln. Incidentally it may be recorded that the forbearance of the commander of the Salmon was rewarded in part by the opportunity afforded him of tor-pedeing two German cruisers in which the Leipzig was definitely hit, while it is also claimed that two torpedoes struck, almost certainly, a heavy cruiser. The feat performed by the Ursula ranks with those which were performed during the last war by such men as Nasmyth, who penetrated the complicated defences of the Dardanelles, and wrought much havoc upon the Tun naval forces, a task which was accompanied by all manner of danger, and which necessitated the most consummate skill, setting a standard which the Germans have approached this year when one of their U-boats penetrated the Scapa Flow defences and accounted for the Royal Oak. Up to the present the performance of the Ursula has not received the notice it should have done simply because the Admiralty are awaiting her return to her base, when she will be able to amplify the report which she undoubtedly made by wireless. Until the whole facts are divulged it is apparent that the Admiralty, in announcing the news, have proceeded with their usual caution which has attended the publication of all claims to success, and which contrasts so severely with the methods adopted by the authorities of the Reich.
The greater detail which has been given of the performance of the Salmon is apparently due to the fact that the submarine has returned to her base, which has enabled the commander to make a full report, and again it has to be emphasized that in it no immoderate claims are made. It is not, for instance, alleged that either of the German war vessels has been sunk, though it is apparent that, if one were hit by one torpedo, and another by two, both those vessels must have received damage which should keep them off the seas for some time to come. Thus, while so many claim that the British policy of understatement makes many of their announcements less picturesque, in the long run the moderateness of the claim, coupled with the ready admission of setbacks, is more likely to prove effective from the point of view of propaganda than the type adopted by the German Ministry under Dr. Goebbels, which kills itself by the sheer flamboyancy of its claims. A striking example of what is meant is to be found in the absurd allegations which have been put forward by Berlin regarding the aeroplane fight over the North Sea. Whereas the British claim that they accounted for twelve German machines, and lost seven of their own, Berlin comes forward with the allegation that they "downed" thirty-four British aeroplanes with the German loss of only two. This they bolstered up with another statement that German air force planes had attacked British patrol and protective vessels, claiming that four of them were sunk, while three others showed heavy lists, a claim which is promptly denied by the Admiralty, and of which the substantiating facts exist only in the minds of the agile German propagandists. There is a reason for these claims. It has been shown as weeks passed that early claims of German air successes against the British Navy have, with the exception of the Royal Oak and the Courageous, been wholly untrue; it is admitted now that the Ark Royal is still afloat, though some absurd claims are now being made to the effect that that vessel clearly shows signs of recent repairs, proving, it is supposed by inference, that she was hit, if not sunk. The suggestion that the British nation is without sufficient paint to obliterate any signs of repairs if they were ever made has only to be mentioned to demonstrate the utter futility of the story. The fact is that Ark Royal never was struck, and that the Nazis know it.
But these early claims have been considerably offset by recent Allied naval successes. The sinking of the Admiral Graf Spee at the hands of her own crew, the destruction of the cruiser Koeln, and at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.