Solid Blow

Among scores of grey shapes playing hide & seek in deadly earnest through the coastal waters around Great Britain was H. M. S. Courageous, oldest vessel of Britain's six aircraft carriers. Her broad, windswept flight deck was busy with planes coming & going to scout for U-boats. Last Sunday evening, just before the dusk hour at which the Athenia was sunk two Sundays prior, the eyes that saved others were not quick enough to save the Courageous. "There were two distinct bangs at intervals of about a second" (said a survivor) and the 22,500-ton craft — torpedoed squarely—keeled over and foundered in 30 minutes. Destroyers nearby raced for the triumphant U-boat, "heavily attacked" it, believed they sank it. Rescue ships, including a U. S. freighter and a Dutch vessel, picked up perhaps half of the Courageous' company who were found singing and cheering in the water. The Admiralty took wry satisfaction from the fact that the carrier had aboard less than her full complement of 48 planes, 1,216 men.

This first solid German blow to the Royal Navy came on the heels of a communique issued last week to assure the British public that something was being done, some progress made, against the U-boats. "His Majesty's destroyers, patrol vessels and aircraft have been carrying out constant patrols over wide areas in search of enemy U-boats. Many attacks have been made and a number of U-boats have been destroyed. Survivors have been rescued and captured when possible."

After the Courageous blow, the British Government announced that "many submarines" had been found and attacked "with little opposition from the German Air Force." The account of a British flier was released, telling how he spotted a U-boat two miles off, sneaked up on it behind a cloud. He opened fire at a man on the conning tower and let go a flight of bombs. These hit the water ahead of the submarine, which was diving. The explosions blew it back to the surface and "the nearest bomb of my second salvo was a direct hit on the submarine's port side. There was a colossal explosion and her whole stern lifted out of the water. She dived into the sea at an angle of 30°."

Allied losses in the war's second week were ten ships, 66,868 tons. This was about 23,000 tons less than the first week's losses (despite the Courageous catastrophe) and brought the total to 25 ships, 156,709 tons. Total German losses: four ships, 14,764 tons.