To the Finish

Adolf Hitler last week served notice that his submarine campaign is the most dangerous weapon in Germany's armory of defense, and that to beat it the U.S. and Britain must bring their best might & brains to bear. Into the supreme command of the German Navy, succeeding famed old Erich Raeder, moved thin-lipped Admiral Karl Doenitz, whom the Germans call the greatest submarine genius of history.

Doenitz devised the U-boats' "wolfpack" tactics, and he has recently sent them to sea in multiple, menacing "echelons of packs." Said he when he took command last week: "I will put the entire concentrated strength of the Navy into the submarine war. . . . The entire German Navy will henceforth be put into the service of inexorable U-boat warfare. The German Navy will fight to the finish."

With the ruthless, 50-year-old Doenitz now in full charge, with submarine production in Germany booming, the U.S. and Britain can expect intensified assault by 500 or more long-range, highly effective U-boats this spring. Until this threat is checked by more escort vessels and perhaps by a top Allied anti-submarine commander of Karl Doenitz' calibre, the Allies will not win their war.

U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, in Honolulu after a tour of the Pacific, well understood the danger in the Atlantic. Said he: "It would be unwise to be optimistic as to the submarine war in the Atlantic. There are losses ahead, but this is a victory we have got to win, and we will win."

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