ABDUL, A.B.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 11

ABDUL, A.B.

TURRET CREATES NEW NAVY. _. A FIVE-YEAR-PROGRAMME. It must not be thought that because mixed bathing has been authorised this year in Turkey for the first time that the Turks regard the sea as a source of amusement only. They are again turning their eyes to the days when Turkey and Venice were among the great maritime powers of Eastern Europe. The Turkish Ministry is devoting its energies to the creation of a defensive navy which can be handled in cohesion with the army and air force. It will take at least five years to carry out the progTatnme. and in the meantime the Turkish authorities assert that their aim is neither aggression nor the awakening of armament competition in the Near East.

Intensive Training. According to the Constantinople correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," the Turkish naval officer is superseding the army officer in public attention in the streets of Constantinople. With the opening of the summer, seaplane squadrons fly over the town from Smyrna and pass on to Black Sea ports. Nocturnal naval manoeuvres have been conducted beyond the islands in the Marmora, and the younger officers in the naval establishments are undergoing intensive training. Modern mines and other equipment are arriving, and Ismid, the naval base, is being adequately protected. The Goeben Again. It is understood that the Navy, which will work in full contact with the autonomous Grant General Staff, will consist principally of small units—destroyers, mine-layers, mine-sweepers and submarines. Two of the submarines have been ordered in Holland after a technical inspection of the various European shipyards. Further purchases will probably be made out of the recent naval budget of £1,750,000, including eight more submarines. The battleship Torgut and two cruisers will be made seaworthy. For these and other repairs a vast floating dock is being delivered by a German shipyard, and great efforts will be made to renovate the Goeben—if she is not too far gone. She is now known as the Yavouz. Turkish Control. Armstrong-Vickers will receive no more concessions, and Turkey is constructing its new arsenal at Ismid without foreign assistance. Instead of inviting a foreign mission to undertake the naval organisation she is engaging individual specialists for the various departments. But these will have no official position in the fleet itself, although they will manage the naval college for the training of squadron and fleet commanders. To these foreign specialists will be entrusted the inspection of the naval schools and the training of the petty officers. But the supreme command of the fleet and of the various units will remain exclusively in Turkish hands.