(As reported in yesterday's papers, Secretary of the Navy, Col. Frank Knox, told the press that the U.S. Navy had sunk three U-boats off the U.S. coast in Jan. and Feb. of 1942. However, the actual number of U-boats sunk by the U.S. Navy to date was zero. The first U-boat sunk by U.S. forces was U-656, which was sunk on Mar. 1, 1942 by a Lockheed Hudson flown by Ens. William Tepuni, USNR of VP-82. This was off Newfoundland. A second, U-503, was sunk off Newfoundland by VP-82 on Mar. 15th. The first U-boat sunk off the U.S. east coast was U-85, which was sunk by USS Roper DD-147 on Apr. 14, 1942.

In an even more absurd report the Navy announced that they believed 21 U-boats had been sunk or damaged. See The Evening Gazette below. )

(This time the report was true, Prinz Eugen had been torpedoed by HM Submarine Trident. Nine men were killed and the stern of the ship collapsed causing extensive damage.)

(One of the most terrible episodes in the sea war. The Struma was torpedoed and sunk by a Russian submarine. With over 780 Jews fleeing Romania, they were robbed by the Romanians, refused entry into Palestine by the British, denied entry by the Turks and finally abandoned in the Baltic Sea and ultimately killed by a Russian torpedo. Only one person survived the sinking.)

(This and several other such headlines were false. I have no record of any Japanese troopships being sunk by aircraft. In fact, the two most recent sinkings were both sunk by a submarine, USS Triton SS-201. One on Feb. 17 and the other on Feb. 21. These occurred off the southern coast of Japan, not near Java.)

(The aftermath of the Battle of Los Angeles.)

(They were not lying, seven ships from convoy ONS-67 were sunk over the course of three days, two others were damaged and another would be sunk a few days later.)

(Secretary of War Henry Stimson proclaimed that enemy agents had "hired" some 15 aircraft to fly over the Los Angeles area to locate anti-aircraft batteries and to "spread alarm" amongst the population. He provided no evidence, did not state where the planes landed or were hired from, announced no arrests of the enemy agents, and made no explanation as to why, after firing over 1,400 rounds, not even one of the 15 aircraft was brought down.

In the same report Secretary of the Navy Col. Frank Knox was quoted as saying that it was a false alarm and that there was no indication that there were any aircraft over Los Angeles.)

(Another false alarm, this time on the Atlantic coast.)

(See the commentary under the News and Chronicle report "U.S. Is Sinking Atlantic U-boats" above.)

(In a bizarre reaction, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, is complaining that the Battle of Los Angeles was called a "false alarm" by Secretary of the Navy Col. Frank Knox. He believes that such a statement has caused "very great damage" to the "civilian defense morale." I can only assume that the sheriff thinks that the public would be better off if they believed that Japanese aircraft penetrated the airspace over Los Angeles. Perhaps public "defense morale" would be diminished if they realized that not one of the suspected aircraft was actually shot down by the gunnery crews assigned to protect the airspace over the city. However, since there were no targets, the public might feel a little better knowing that the anti-aircraft batteries did not shoot anything down, because there was nothing to shoot down, except, as it turns out, for a weather balloon.)

(What the graphic does not answer is exactly where the aircraft might come from. The Germans had no aircraft that could reach the USA and return to Europe without refueling and they had no aircraft carriers to launch an aerial attack against the USA. Both facts that the government was well aware of. The Japanese did have a number of aircraft carriers and could conceivably launch an attack against the U.S. west coast, but the Navy was well aware of where these carriers were and they would be for the duration of the war.)

(Churchill's House of Commons speech exposes the criminal's mendacity and guilty conscience.)