W Churchill E have broken the back of the U-boat war,"
said Mr. Churchi on Tuesday. No statement of action taken by the Allies in the West could have more sinister import for the Germans, who NEWS OF THE WEEK
throughout last year were taught that their submarines provided the one unfailing instrument for winning the war. Mr. Churchill's words were a true and unqualified affirmation of victory ; 150 U- boats have been destroyed in the last six months, 6o during the last three months—the second figure being proportionately smaller because there were fewer targets. Fewer Allied merchant ships have been sunk than U-boats destroyed, and as our action against them intensifies the ratio is becoming more and more to our advantage, while on the other side Allied shipbuilding is forging ahead with amazing speed. Reports which reach neutral countries from Germany tell of a spirit of despair infecting the U-boat crews, and indicate that nothing has caused so much discouragement to the enemy as the repeated evidence that the submarine war was failing—first the evidence of the unmistakable weight of our armour in Egypt and French North Africa, conveyed thither by transport -across the seas through U-boat packs and then the news, which could not be hidden, of the deadly blows struck by our forces. The Germans had looked to the U-boat to hold back the accumulating supplies of American material and American soldiers from the shores of Europe, and now know that nothing can stop that unending stream.
