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Caribbean Front Means Much

To

Allied Forces Elsewhere the

By JOHN GROVER Wide World Service Writer JOlIN What happens on fighting fr fronts in western Europe and Australia may depend considerably on-the battle of the Caribbean now being fought between German submarines and U. S. naval U S

patrols
What ha p ns' in the Caribns ii happens iri depend bean may also depend on what is happening now in Vichy Vichy whether further French collabr oration with the axis will lead the allies to seize French MarMarMar tinique and Guadeloupe stratestratestrate gically important naval and pospospos sibly submarine bases in the West Several dozen ships many of them tankers have been attacked in the Caribbean area and adjaadjaadja cent waters The concentration of o n tankers is nazi U-boat skippers significant Tanker routes supplying RAF RA F bases in the British Isles with aviaaviaavia gasoline start on the Dutch tion islands of Aruba and Curacao where there are vast refineries for oil from the neighboring VeneVeneVene zue an fields Tanker routes from zuelan the gulf coast oil ports to the U. S. industrial east converge inin U S the Straits of Florida Other Tanker Courses Other tanker courses lie in the passages between the islands of the eastern Caribbean These of points of convergence have been the hunting ground of the steel

U. S. U S

Indies

has ringed the Caribbean with air and naval bases Only lately establishment of a huge new bomber base in Guatemala was announced It is one of many neighneigh Most of the Caribbean good neighbors are already at war with the axis The others have broken off enediplomatic relations with our ene mies Pay Terrible Price The whole Caribbean is under Tle constant patrol The navy has axis announced that the axi has paid nd a terrible price in ships and men successes for for their successes' in American
One big mystery is where the tortorU-boats are getting fuel and tor tor exThey've used torpedoes ex exex Almost every sinking even of little cargo argo craft shows two tin fish expended A sub skipper probably would use more care if his closest torpedo supplies were miles away Vichy France has assured the allies that subs are not basing on French territory iii the in bean Some of our good neighbors don't dont believe Vichy Villanova of General Brazil flatly charged the submanines rines were using Martinique Guadeloupe and other French bases He pointed out that Vichy denied the nazis were using had bases in Syria too until it was proved Remote Possibility Naval men say that the possibility of mother ships supplying the submarines in the Caribbean is remote Its under such rigid It's surveillance a surface craft would soon be spotted Other possibilities are that freighter submarines are carrying torpedo cargoes to the fighting renren subs meeting them in night renthoudezvous or that some of the thouthou sands of uninhabited keys in the area were stocked with secret caches before the war began

waters

1500 ton

cret It is no military s ecret that tankers are vulnerable ships The been hard allied tanker fleet has hit in two years of warfare Last fall Secretary Ickes acknowledged U aU S aU. S. tanker fleet shortage when gas rationing was briefly enforced This means that every tanker sunk is a blow where it hurts lit With the arrival of General MacMac iii Austra U. S. troops in AustraAustraUS ha the lia the problem of oil supply is even further complicated nas No Oil Res ve H s Reserves oil resources Australia has no toil resource Gas for th four-motored bombthe bomb and their ers arid th ir fighter escorts dededede de fending Australia must be moved by the allied incredible distances tanker fleet The axis evidently hopes by concentrating a huge submarine force in the Caribbean seriously to deplete available tanker tontonton nage and cripple the war effort in and Australia Britain To this strategy the

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