A FLEET IN BEING.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13226, 21 September 1908, Page 3

A FLEET IN BEING.

WITH THE AMERICAN SHIPS AT SEA:

A unique experience, and ono in which only a comparatively few participated, befell Mr M. S., Ridley, of this city, who returned last Thursday from a visit to Australia on .business connected with tho United States fleet. With others, Mr Ridley was a passenger by the steamer Yongala, which accompanied the fleet through the 254 miles of Australian water that flows between Sydney and Melbourne, and to a representative of '"The Press" Mr Ridley gave an interesting account of tho passage.

The eight of tho fleet entering Port Jackson and Port Philip, Mr- Ridley said, and the spectacles presented by the greatest armada that has ever sailed the Pacific, when ai« anchor off Sydney and Meifooi.rne, sank urto comparative insignificance compared with tho grandly picturesque panorama of the sixteen magnificent battleships under . full steam ploughing their way to the Victorian -capital. ■ Tho fleet was practically out of sight when the Yongala loib Sydney two hours after the departure of iho battleships, but ._ four or five hours the Yongala, doing sixteen knots an hour, had caught wp to them. Nearing the fleet ono of the first impressions received by those on board the Yongala was that a huge manufacturing city lay ahead—an impression that was intensified by the volumes of brown smoke omdttod from the funnels .of. the warships- When elf Montague Island; the Yongala was abreast of the flagship. Wonderful as was the spectacle presented by tho fleet in tho daytime, or in the dulJ grey of the morning, it was truly magnificent at night when the searchlights wore worked and signalling was in progress. To those on the Yongala it aippeared at times like a scene from fairyland, so beautiful were the effects produced and so varied the colouring. On the second day out tfhey were further delighted with a display of tactics which roused their enthusiasm to the highest pi tch. From single &n© formation the order was given to change to "two-line ahead" formation. The evolution was led off hy the Connecticut heading a point seaward, an extra knot being got out of her engines; then her two divisions put on speed and headed across with her. The Louisiana and her two divisions ©lackered speed, were lost for a space in the mammoth smoke cloud from the first squadron, and when this cleared' up they were d'seovered completing their alignment. Suddenly another signal was flown from the Connecticut, and tho whole fleet was once more steaming ahead in single file. And so'throughout the afternoon the spectators, on the Yongala watched the great battleships perform various evolutions with a precision and proxap- j titude that astonished thorn,