One Empire ship pēříormed brilliantly in the Mediterranean, His Majesty's Australian cruiser, Sydney, outgunned by two fo one, took on the Italian, Bartolomeo Colleoni, and a sister ship, of the class called "fastest in the world," sank the Bartolomeo Colleoni and put the other to flight.
Losses in war vessels after one year, as ne as they could be reckoned, were: Britain, one battleship, two carriers, two' anti-aircraft cruisers, one cruiser, 28 destroyers; 11 sub" marines, five armed merchant cruisers; Canada, one destroyer: France, one cruiser minelayer, eight destroyers; Poland, one destroyer, one submarine since end of Polish ca) paign, which n nited in loss of other vessels in her navy.
Germany, one pocket battleship, one heavy cruiser, two certain and one probable light cruisers, 11 destroyers, and an unknown humper of submarines, probably between 50 and 60; Italy, one cruiser, between 15 and 20 submarines. All lost numerous Montevideo with shattered fire conaller craft from air attack, mines trol, other severe hits, and a casualty list of 36 dead and 60 wounded. The Graf Spee had sunk nine British merchant ships. Three days later she ignominiously sank herself off Montevideo, rather than risk another fight.
On the night of February 17, the destroyer Cossack steamed into Norwegian waters under Admiralty orders, ran the German steamer Altmark aground in Josingfjord, and after boarding her and forcing her crew overside in a hand-to-hand fight rescued over 300 British prisoners from the ships the Graf Spee or gunfire "The Dirty Work"
Meanwhile, the dirty work of war went on, the patrols of salt-streaked little destroyers and coastal submarines, the unnoticed departures of auxiliary trawlers which laid and swept the mines, and helped to escort the food and munitions convoys. The trawler fleet, with its one and two pounders and M.G.'s for protection, is short on guns but very long on guts.
British shipping losses since the beginning of the war are given as less than 1,200,000 tons. They have been
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.