NEW. WARSHIPS' NAMES

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 146, 22 June 1937, Page 6

NEW. WARSHIPS' NAMES

There are no fewer than 29 names appearing in the fleet for the first time as a result of the list of new. warships issued by the Admiralty. There is a fine Imperial ring about many of the names, too. All the new large cruisers are called after Crown colonies, and all their names come fresh to the Navy liet; for, although there has been an H.M.S. 'Niger before, there has not been an H.M.S. Nigeria. Among the destroyers are the Khartoum, Kimberley, Kanahar and Kingston. The name of Kipling is also celebrated in this class —interesting, because Kipling, although he wrote of the Navy in his later years, bases his claim to posterity more surely as a scribe of the Army. There is a Scott in the list, too; but this does not mean that the Navy has gone all literary, because the Scott celebrated is not Sir Walter Scott but Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer. Several villages and hamlets not generally known, and evidently picked out of a gazetteer, have been chosen to provide names for the new boom defence vessels, which all begin with "B." Who, five miles distant, has heard of Barcroft. Bar fair and Barwood? Perhaps it is the "bar"' which is the attraction to the nautical mind.