BROADSIDES!

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 211, 7 September 1933, Page 5

BROADSIDES!

BIG GUN SHOOT. AUSTRALIAN SHIPS. THUNDER IN THE GULF. COTTON WOOL IN DEMAND. (Br Special Seaplane—"Auckland Star.") H.M.A.S. Australia, at Sea, thie day. There was thunder in the Hauraki Gulf this morning when His Majesty's Australian ships Canberra and Australia carried out a full-calibre ehoot with their eight-inch guns. Each ship fired eleven eight-inch broadsides at a range of 12,000 yards. . Preparations for the practice occupied very much more time than the shoot itself. Everything on deck was made fast, all awning stanchions were cleared away, boate were securely lashed under canvas covers, wooden doors were lifted off and all scuttles were screwed down. Below, in the wardroom flat of the. Australia, a model of the cruiser, presented to the ship by the builders, rode motionless without the glass case which usually .covers it. In the wardroom itself all pictures were unscrewed and lifted down, and special precautions were taken to see that all crockery and other breakAbies were made snug. By 9 o'clock the Australian squadron, which, had been anchored during the night off Kawau Island, was under weigh and proceeding slowly seawards. For nearly an hour it steamed, with little or no alteration in course. Away on the starboard side, appearing on the rim. of the horizon, the big battle practice target was being towed by H.M.s. Dunedin. "Enemy in Sight.' , Increasing her lead, the Australian flagship wheeled sharply and headed back in the direction whence she had come, so that she was 6teaming on an opposite course to that being followed by the Dunedin and target. Up till this stage the flagship's big Sin guns had been pointing fore and aft, but with the distance between ship and target at 12,000 yards came the information "enemy in sight." Simultaneously the four gun-turrets swung round and rapidly the range and angles were applied. Everything was ready.

With a; mighty roar the flagship fired her first broadside. From the eight gunmouths came a blinding flash of flame and a smother of brown smoke. Officers on the bridge, with sea glassee glued to their eyes, focused on the target and waited for the shells to land. A column of water, higher than the target, told that the first shot had landed, and a fraction of a second later seven more snowy waterspouts reared themselvee ■upward. A second time the guns thundered, and again the target was partly hidden from view behind the high columns of water that the shells sent ■up. In all, the Canberra fired 11 broadsides, and as the result of the last was eeen an officer on the Australia was heard to remark, "Nicely straddled." A Deafening Chorus. Having shown her teeth, the Canberra handed over the attack to her consort cruiser, which all this time had been steaming slowly on her original couree. Smartly the Australia put about and picked, up the wake of her flagship. Gun turrets swung round and the shoot was on. In deafening chorus the eight guns roared and a cloud of brown .smoke floated 'back over the ship. Viewed at close quarters the flash of the guns was blinding and the concussion threatened to throw one off one's feet. No sooner' had one clap •of thunder died away, leaving the air strangely still, than tihe guns roared again, until the 11 broadsides had been fired. Before the action cotton wool had been much in demand for plugging ears, and' during the firing even weather-worn veterans -were seen to put their hands to the sides of their heads ae an additional safeguard against headaches. Crew at Action Stations. Throughout the action the cruiser's full company had been at action stations. In the 'tween decks a fire party was ready with hoses, repair parties were at their stations forward and aft, a flood and trim party was just as it would have been had there.been any real danger of an enemy shell making it neceseary for the cruiser to be quickly ■farimmed. In various parts of the ehip men were ready with gas masks. . With the firing over, gun crews immediately "sponged out" their guns, and on deck and below the ship was quickly given back her normal appearance. The effect of the firing can be gauged from the fact that on returning to his cabin, two decks below the quarter deck, a Press photographer found towels shaken off their hooks and a cup and eaucer, left on the top of a flat sea chest, in fragments on the floor.