Sunday Times of Malta
9th September 1945 Page 3
Moving the Mines
300 BEING CLEARED WEEKLY
Up to August 1945 British Minesweepers swept nearly 25,000 mines.
Today, four months after V.E. Day, at least eleven flotillas of British minesweepers are still fully engaged in European waters where 100,000 British and hundreds of enemy mines round Britain alone, presented the greatest minesweeping task yet tackled. At the same time the clearance of channels to the ports of North-west Europe and the Mediterranean remains an urgent task in view of the importance 0f restoring the economic life of the Continent
CONSIDERABLE FORCE IN INDIAN OCEAN
The rate of clearance which has averaged 300 to 350 weekly rose to 613 in one recent week, but the approaching winter will necessarily restrict operations and the main effort will have to wait till the summer on 1946.
Nevertheless it may be assumed that a considerable minesweeping force is at hand
in the Indian Occean, for until the Malacca Strait is clear, it will be impossible to move tens of thousands of Allied orisoners at present in Singapore and Malaya.
As soon as minesweepers finish their task, convoys of hospital ships, transport and food ships are expected to move to Singapore at full speed.
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