Letter: Irish war record

Sir: The devastating effect on British shipping in 1940 by U-boats off the west coast of Ireland (Letters, 22 November) is set out in detail by Winston Churchill in Volume II of his publication The Second World War. He wrote to President Roosevelt on 13 December 1940:

Now that we are denied the use of Irish ports and airfields our difficulties restrain our flotillas to the utmost limit . . . we are so hard-pressed at sea that we cannot undertake to carry any longer the 400,000 tons of feeding stuffs and fertiliser which we have hitherto convoyed to Eire through all the attacks of the enemy.

He spoke of "The straits to which we are being reduced by Irish action".

JOHN ALDERSON

Ottery St Mary, Devon