German Radio Report

[Jim]

"Today an attack on a convoy can be compared with nothing less than a desperate assault on a mighty line of fortifications. British convoys are now always powerfully escorted by large numbers of fast and heavily armed warships; all these encircle the convoy, keeping vigilant and sharp watch. Moreover, all the merchantmen themselves are armed with A.A. guns or machine-guns. Added to this are the cruisers with their heavy calibre guns, barrage balloons with their malicious steel cables. As soon as our bombers approach a most murderous fire is opened, and they have no easy task to penetrate this hail of shrapnel, steel and iron. For them to get at the ships is to go down into the shadow land of death,"

Berlin Radio, Oct, 26th 1941

[Kelly]

It just shows how difficult it must have been to get at the merchant ships and in saying that, how great an achievment it must have been to actually sink one.