North Sea Losses .
At the time of going to press the mystery concerning the presumed loss of the aircraft-carrier ' Glorious,' the destroyers ' Ardent' and Acasta,' the tanker ' Oil Pioneer' and the Orama ' (an empty transport) has not been cleared up. It is assumed that these vessels were operate in connexion with the withdrawal from Narvik, but up to thripresent the Admiralty has been unable to give information about their fate. On the other hand, an enemy communiqué claims that the German battleships Gneisenau ' and Scharnhorst ' were involved and adds that several hundred prisoners were taken. The mention of the two German capital ships opens other questions. Immedi- ately after the German invasion of Norway a Norwegian official communiqué reported that Gneisenau ' had been sunk by coastal batteries in Oslo Fjord. On April 9th Schamhorst ' was severely damaged in an engagement with ' Renown.' It is improbable that Scharnhorst ' has been so quickly repaired or that the Norwegians were mistaken when they identified Gneisenau.' In view of the German practice of mingling fact and fiction in official communiqués it is more than probable that the vessels recently engaged were not Scharnhorse and Gneisenau,' but the two cruisers which the R.A.F. discovered and hit in Trondheim harbour on Tuesday last.
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