World War: AT SEA: 47% Better

Although warning against undue optimism, Lord Privy Seal Clement Richard Attlee could not keep cheerfulness out of his voice last week when he reported to the House of Commons on the war at sea. "July was a good month," he said. Axis merchantmen to the tonnage of 459,000 (92 ships) were sunk, damaged or put out of action. Of these 291,000 tons were hit in the North Sea or the Atlantic; 168,000 tons in the Mediterranean.

For strategic reasons the Admiralty no longer gives out monthly British sinking losses, but First Lord Albert Victor Alexander declared them lower than in any month since he took office in May 1940. There was encouragement even in the Nazi claims for the month of July: 407,600 tons of Allied shipping, a drop of 47% from the 769,950 tons claimed for June. (Experts generally cut the German High Command's naval triumph figures almost in half.) The British took this as a sign that they were doing a lot better in the battle of the blockade, pointed out that July, with its lengthy stretches of daylight (in the region of Iceland as much as 24 hours), is considered one of the best months for maritime raiding. (The Nazis burbled that they had already sunk so much enemy tonnage that the Atlantic was virtually free of merchant shipping.) Undoubted contributing factor: withdrawal of long-range Nazi bombers to the Russian Front.