THE BRITISH FLEET AT WAR.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15649, 22 July 1916, Page 7

THE BRITISH FLEET AT WAR.

NEW ZEALAND JOURNALIST'S

EXPERIENCES.

a week: with the men op the

JSFAYY.

,fjCS OTTB. TJOfCaOS COBBKSPONDEKT.)

No. V. THE SHELL HELL. DOING THEIE WHACK. LONDON. June 1. Labour has its extenuating circumstances, I Ho not doubt, but it "stuck in the gizzard" to see the bank-to-bank clause operating in all its nakedness in this feverish war-rush. "Fifteen minutes before the dinner-whistle went, the workers were streaming through the forest of iron from all quarters towards the gate. There they stood, some for fully ten minutes, waiting for the first gurgle of the steam towards the whistle. It was for all tho world like some ceremonial gathering of natives in the forest—the workmen standing in groups between the "trees" patiently and methodically waiting for the sign. When it came, tho effect was galvanic. The steam burst through like a millrace, what time the littlo children, who had brought their fathers' lunch, pressed themselves close into the wall for protection. But, in spite of this, it must be admitted that these workers have been staunch and loyal according to their lights. Nor are they quite out of the zone of war, for, in the midst of their shops is' a memorial to their fellows killed in a Zeppelin raid.

One section at least of the munition workers I acquit of shirking. They would be shirking if thev went to an infantry regiment at the front. A distinguished engineer, with a reputation in former wars, took me on a tour through the shell shops of his firm. On either side of the main door there were a set of boilers painted for preservation against the weather.

"Those are for the King of Siam," he saidV waggishly. "But he can't get them now, because he won't join in the war." To such straits are we pushed for help. In another yard I saw some torpedo craft for our Ally in the Far East. They, too, were making slow progress, for the naval situation in th«» •East is not pressing. A MONOPOLY OF SHELLS. Now, what is to be said of a shellshop? Not one of these genteel "mu-nition-factories" (some -of the Minister's 4000) where so many volunteer ladies are working harder than they ever worked before, putting together the component parts of the shell; but that hell itself where all these things are first forged and cast. We began at the better end.' After a most inspiring ramble through acres of heavy artillery of new patterns just off the machines, we entered the shell works. There is heaps of ground room, and it is used methodically; but the thing looked a perfect tangle of pulleys and shafts and belts.

This shed is 400 yards long; and down the whole length are a dozen rows of pulleys and driving-gear; and beneath, a dozen rows of lathes turning the shells true; or drills testing them, or punches pounding th© brass cases into the right thinness. The avenues between the rows of machinery are quite.plain as the eye becomes accustomed to the maze of things. Many of tho workers,. seated beside the machine, are not at first visible, go that fully half the population of the sheds docs not appear on the face of it. Girls are working with the men (usually at the lighter processes of drilling and some assembling). Boys and men are incessantly pushing great lumbering barrows of the metal shapes from process to process; from washing to washing ; from row to row; from inspector to inspector. Every heap of small shell, every individual large shell, bears chalked the mark of the worker and the instruction of the inspector. Fancy being told to take 2-pounds off a 13.5 common shell.

(In this shed alone seventy-two *7P es of shell were being made, a most uneconomical arrangement from all points of view.) What a weariness of the flesh to throw faithfully all these myriad shells one at a time, across on the territory of the Hun, hoping for hits! And this is only one of a multitude of shops doing the same work. The war through j these glasses seems interminable. Yet there are encouraging signs. Far through the forest of rods, great phantom shells, finished and polished aJid finely balanced in the chain slings, are seen hastening away into the wings like the fairy godmother in the pantomime. Here, at length, is finality. GOLDEN COFFINS. There is Hell at each end of a shell's career. In the casting shop they look like golden coffins, swinging in the air from process to process. And if one class of men in England has gone through most of the horrors of a bombardment without actually drawing the shilling a day for it, and wearing the uniform, they are the casters and forgers of big shells. From the time the metal is poured into the first mould and punched down with a six-inch ram in its in'ards, until the finished foiging trundles heavily away, on a truck to the next process — the lathes—it is one long agony for the j shell and its tormentors alike. Everything is .white hot. Nothing is allowed to cool even for a second. Having been hollowed by punching, the shell, still pale red, i 3 swung without respite to another great crucible and heated up again relentlessly. To us the very | breath of the furnaces, for the few seconds they are open, is overpowering; and we stand in a respectful ring apart. But for the men the struggle is neverending. Away overhead delicate electric cranes stretching from side to side of the shed, move silently to and fro on their gliders. Keen eyes in eerie cabinets, fixed always on the crucible of torment, control and guide a*id direct th© pendent claw grips and the reaching chains. The moment the shell ; emerges from one crucible clever pliers I attach the claw grips, so nicely that the brutal thing hangs poised to a fraction skilfully imprisoned. A faint **a& as of compressed air, and the

•whole* thing i s sailing through tie air to the next crucible. There is no rest for tho golden coffin, no hitch t no ibreath of coolness. It is hell, stoked •with hellish malice. The forgemen have been through the fiery furnace in the fullest sonse. If the quality is defec- ■ thre the whole cast goes back into the crucibles. I>ay and night, week in and fweefc out, this ordeal of fire goes oiu There ar € no rest-days in billets. There is no day on duty that is not full of I many nerve-wracking horrors of bombardment. Clang; clatter; hard lifting; delicate balancing; and over and above all heat, hellish heat. This is the "mark time," the "right and left turn," and the pack drill of war. There 1S 5 a or •** DU * there are no medals, and there is no public recognition. FORGING THE PROWS. To return to tho lathee now is Eke taking an evening's stroll after a hot, dusty day. Everything looks pleasant and interesting and easy by comparison. The lot of the Dig gun looks and dignified, and cool. The Hell of the forges and casting has taken all the iron and heat out of everything else. Afy tour was an encouraging bewilderment of quantities. Shells of all shapes and qualities and sizes in thousands kept passing mo in review for hours afterwards. Tho thought constantly running through my brain was that somebody is. going to* be awfully tired before all this mass of projectiles has been duly chucked "across the line," and l fell asleep at last, hastening northwards to a new aspect of the Fleet at war and dreaming' contentedly of the -?009 other munition factories which Mr Uoyd-George controls, and which, thank heaven, I need not visit in detail. But I shall never agree that all single men, or all men of military age, can be combed out of our iron and steel industries, or that they can be regarded as shirking there from something more rigorous and shattering. | SMILING SENTRIES. | It seems rather bootless in this un'fenced tangle of building "on Government account," to meet now and again a stray sentry with fixed bayonet, who ( salutes you and does not even say j "Thus far." You return the greeting ! and pass, but only because you are properly authorised and accompanied. Life is not worth living nowadays, at any rate, towards the East Coast, unless you are a properly authorised person. But, betng such a person, it is altogether pleasant and full of interest. It is most appetising to pass to and fro amongst aK. this gear where officers smile with , the utmost cordiality, but the policemen carry revolvers strapped to their waists. When yon read, hanging over the counter of a ship, the prosaic old admonition, "Beware of the propellers," • you do not expect much more than a meat-carrier ; but the colour and the clatter remind you of the proxfruity of H.M.S. Hush, or something equally secret. .; The average taxpayer would feel very contented with his receipt from the Inland Revenue Commissioners if he could only see so dose at hand some of the engines his money is ; providing. He is not so lucky thero a& the crack wind-jammer across the water, a four-masted ship which lies serene and handsome close to one of the yards. She used to make her 17 knots an hour for days on end in running her easting down to Australia. Later she carried ore from New Caledonia; and to-day, lucky ship, she is blazoned with the flag of Norway on both sides, and throws down her bucket where she lists, quito unsuspected in an age of suspicion. j These processes, shipbuilding and guni making and munition making, are es- ■ sentdal and vital to our cause. Just ;as surely as the men in Flanders; just as surely as the watchers on the des- . troyers and the trawiers buffeting and searching and chasing about in the North Sea, are these boatbuilders and riveters of the Black Country doing their duty in the struggle, forging the prows, true and stout, and pushing them forward to the fray, seaward, ! eastward, always eastward, where the ! van of civilisation stands on guard I against the Hun,

No. VI. THE GRAND FLEET. ON THE , FLAGSHIP. LONDON, June 1. Oar first sight of the Grand Fleet was, of course, a moment of great excitement. After boarding a destroyer at a place, most of us kept our eyes ghied to the horizon as if at some moment we should suddenly see the whole thing, looming up in battle array. One of the great battle squadrons I had seen in the dim light of early morning as we passed its anchorage a hundred miles eway, but that did not militate against the schoolboy expectation that "the whole thing" would still be here to .burst upon our gaze.

A destroyer is not a very Toonry craft, ! and in these days the deck space is cumbered by shell stands and heavy bombs, which are dotted about everywhere. The shells rest point downward on the deck, and as often as not the civilian, who has no sort of right to be on H.jVI.S. Anything, uses them as a seat. But this little lapse does not alter the fact that our destroyer— the same on which the King visited his Fleet l —is a ship at war. Nothing is taken for granted from the fact that 6he has often made this trip before. She is cleared for action, and the gun and torpedo crews stand by all the time. Every sail is a potential enemy. THE YEOMAN. The bridge accommodates noTmaDy the commander and a person whose intelligence deserves an equal respect— the yeoman of signals. "Yeoman" signifies the full qualification of a person who can read and send heliograph, semaphore, and flag signals with entire catholicity, but it does not imply age, or even Our yeoman was about twenty-five,' and in our unaccustomed eyes he was a very capable interpreter of the babel of signs in which the Ileet converses. Battleships in this vast armada he knew by sigTit, without the glasses; destroyers which happened to tread on our wake

with startling suddenness- from nowhere he knew intimately; their numbers and Christian names. Tho immovable winking lights of the Fleet at War and tho supply-ships all had meanings for him, and most of them, after recognising, he ignored.

He was busy telling mo of his visit to tho trenches with "one of the parties from the Navy, when he suddenly broko off—

"Flagship's calling, sir." Before the officer could reply he had the lanyard down and was acknowledging the flagship out of all this tangle of masts and hulls, with reciprocal winks of the searchlight. Whou another ship obscured tho light, he was reading, for tho semaphore, and got it at once. All languages wcro alike intelligible.

This was our first decent excursion into what is vaguely called the North Sea, that is water where the enemy and enemy contraptions are liablo to be encountered, and all the signs of readiness for action now took on a now significance. The frequent little trawlers whioh in peace would have been catching fish for market, are nearly all to-day doing; perhaps the most vital and dangerous work of tho war. They, moro than any other type of ship, are* oxercising our command of the sea in the constant patrol for contraband. They . run multiplied risks by tho orthodoxy of their movement both on patrol and as mine-sweepers, and it is a well-earned immunity that for once in their lives tliev need not dip their ensigns. The White Ensign to-day is tho hallmark of a democracy of the soa, and No. 509 Hull—Jot us say—with » three-pounder gun, carries his flag masthead high alongside the Iron Duke. WHAT'S IN A NAME? What we call tho Grand Fleet is in reality tho whole of the 6hips under the command of Sir John Jellicoo. from the battle squadrons down to tho trawlers and patrol boats in tho North. Sea, and the monitors on the coast of Belgium. But tho public mind has given it a finer meaning, to which wo gladly subscribed when, after five days of seeing sufficiently "grand" portions of this mighty command, we approached the spot where wo knew the climax j would be reached. Almost before our argosy had proved her right to an "open sesame, the first outlines of tho Fleet disclosed themselves. Down lateral avenues of sea the breezo blew faint patches of "thick weather," the smoke and dust and murk of »the supply fleet. Here, in some long low fjord lay the colliers, week after week, month after month, ready for sea at a moment's notice. War means records of all sorts, and the Fleet records for coaling have been broken over and over again by the slowest ships. Readiness is the paramount consideration, afld tho very first thought of the ship -returning from sea, whether from patrol or from battle, is to get ready "at once" to proceed to sea again. Oil, coal, provisions, repairs—everything must bo replenished at top speed. No ship is fit to take a rest until she is fit to be wakened up suddenly, and sent to sea Btill rubbing her eyes. If Cardiff lies in one gulf, Batum is in another. The prosy oilers, which only a few months ago were mud and anathema to tho salt water sailor of the Victorian age—have forced their way into the affections of the Navy. The whole Fleet, indeed, is very rapidly going over to oil. Already there are oil driven battleships in the first line; and torpedo craft havo consumed oil for years. Coaling is a good old tradition, and the coaling achievements of the war eclipse any peace records, but the sailor men say candidly that they prefer to have ifc done through a pipe overside. THE REAL THING. In other coves trawlers, forge-ships, torpedo mother-ships with clutches of their children lying abreast, submarine mother-ships young; hospital ships long withdrawn from the Cape trade or tho Indian trooping and waiting, oh, so wearily 1 for The Day; mine-layers and mine-sweepers. From any one of these bays the mastheads of tho other flotillas can be seen over the intervening island. Finally, the Fleet itself. That is to say, the battle squadrons immediately under the command of Sir John Jellicoe, with their attendant cruisers, torpedo craft, and submarines. As we open them out, a seaplane carrier sends up a "sausage' for observation, and as we pass her—a, strange craft with two funnels abreast and one drops a seaplane gracefully into' the water alongside. A-moment later the propeller starts, and in an. incredibly snort time, facing up wind, she rises from the water and soars high over the Fleet.

We were received by Sir John Jellicoe on his own quarter-deck in the most cordial and unaffected manner, and after sonio conversation dispersed in parties to lunch on , different flagships. I was one of the fortunate party to remain on tKe Iron Duke to lunch, and sitting next to the Captain of the Fleet (whom we know better as Captain of H.M.S. New Zealand), I got a good idea of the incessancy, and the urgency of the administrative work of the command, as represented by a continuous influx of wireless '* messages from "the ships at sea." HOME LIFE AT SEA. The Iron Duke is just like any other warship, a human ship, with its seamen, its guns, and its home life. Where the New Zealand has a coat of arms on the turret, the Iron Duke has a Europe painted "to let the men see how things stand." Below in the room in which daily communion service is held, the wooden altar stands back in a corner and gunners exercise at gun4aying with the minatures of the enemy fleet. On the walls of the gun turrets are stencilled silhouettes of the types of Hun ships, to assist the gun-layers in identifying their target. Just outside the door an old-fashioned iron bicycle in a frame is an object of curiosity. Is it a relic of the youthful pursuits of the Commander-in-Chief? .Really, it is an emergency battery for the wireless. If anything happens to the latter and the power fails, a lusty 6eaman mounts the bicycle and pedals at the highest possible speed to produce an electric current. But the emergency , is woil guarded against. The wireless is jealously housed in a, well-armoured part of the vessel, and it is well protected by wire against the intrusion of friends. As a matter of fact, the officers themselves are rather afraid of the deadly voltage, and one who has toured Spain has hung on the compartment a very appropriate reb'c, a 6kull and crossbones and the inscription, "No tocar. Peligro de muerte." (Do not touch. Danger of death). The flagship has a horseman (probably the Duke of Wellington) on the handsome brass tompions of her great guns, as the Now Zealand has 'New Zealand" and the crown. The Admiral's drawing-room is very plain but very comfortable, carpeted and upholstered in green. It is, of course, an office as well, for there is no time in a Commander-in-Chief , s life which he can completely separate from the great task committed to him. On one of the great ships I was interested to read on the notice board in the wardroom the warning that no officer who might be captured, by the enemy should give his word of honour not to try to escape, or, on being sent back to England, should promise not to resume arms against the Hun, on pain of incurring ''their Lordship's displeasure." It read quaintly on a vessel bearing the motto of Sir Richard Grenville. The next notice by way of contrast, said that the Rugby ground had been allotted for a certain date to a certain ship! This is part of the valetudinarian regime of the Fleet. The sick-Jist is practically nil, and what disease there is is almost all due to infection brought by new drafts of men. THE KING BOLT. The Battle Fleet. has a nature and function entirely different from those of the battle-cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers. It is in fact, the final sanction ofjaower which makes the mora

mobile squadrons effective. The fas* vessels, whether they be battle-cruisors, light cruisers, or destroyers—to say nothing .of tho trawler fleote, tho constables of tho ocean—are in reality tho spearheads of our sea power. They alone havo tho mobility to get into contact with tho enemy if ever ho taktss the sea, but they would oouut for littlo if tho enemy did not kuow that bohind them somewhere in tho sheltered places of tho North Sea lay tho great galleons of the battle squadrons, tho final arbiters of the struggle. It is not always easy to soo thoso things in perspective. When I saw the Grand Fleet this timo, in the warm surroundings of early summer, with rich green backgrounds of spring grass, and with more than occasional burst of sunshine through, fleeting banks of clouds, tho ships all looked so affable and harmless and goodnatured that it required an effort to keep remembering them as tho real re pository of tho power and might of England. Everywhere wo were greeted with sailorliko cordiality and unaffected hospitality. It was liko fondling sorao handsome irasciblo monster which, would not even show its teeth for our benefit. I saw tho armament much more iu its true character of implacable power in the winter of 1914. "There was no green or sunshine then. Snow held tho hillsides t© the water's edgo. Tho clanging galloons heaved at their chains on the intruding swoll of tho Atlantic rollers, and raked their mastheads to and fro disconsolate against tho whito hilltops and the cold grey sky above. Angry waves smacked the bastionod sides incessantly, sending a. skivering spray over tho baro soaked decks. Rust showed round tho turret openings, and sea rime on the grey sides. Chafing ceaselessly at their moorings, tho winter fleet was a picture of restless watchfulness and insatiablo pugnacity. I saw it in tho grey winter much more clearly as tho King Bolt of tho struggle. For that is undoubtedly its character. The Grand Fleet, even if it never sees the Hoch See Flotten, is keeping the ring while civilisation and barbarism fight it out, round by round, along tho long bitter line of trenches from Nienport to Switzerland. Tho octopus of the battle squadrons, with its antenna) in every furrow and bight of the North Sea, is at tho throat of Germany, holding her shackled within her sandbanks. If we stood out of tho war, if our Grand Fleet relaxed its hold, Germany would breathe afresh, and the atranglo would be on tho throats of our Allies. They would havo to surrender. On the other hand, if tho Allies (surrendered w e could withdraw our armies to England and still continue tho war alone This armament', anchored to-day s« trim and comfortable in havens ono may not indicate, is tho reservoir of power which makes all tho other branches of tho Service effective. It is the Kini Bolt of tho Navy, and the King BoU of the cause of civilisation to-day. THE <X>JOfANDER-IN-CHIEF. I have said tho Grand Fleet is comfortably anchored, and that exactly agrees with tho envious story which the German Naval Intelligence Staff has given to tho world. A& a matter of tact, it is, and has been habitually, a sea-going fleet. One or two of its squadrons were, at the moment of our visit at sea; several of its units were speeding about in the outer waters of this groat "place" practising with heavy guns, and the Commander-in-Chief himself had only tho previous evening returned from a cruise. If, peradventurc, tho Admiralitatstab, reading this, should desiro to inflict a mortal injury upon the Grand l'loet, it would do well to search for its victim, not amongst the most conspicuous and the most bemedalled officers. At sea ho will be found on dock, practically the whole of tho time. In port he will be found some part of the time in his executive offices, m tho stern of his flagship, amongst ' pinflagged charts, telegrams and reports. His complexion is that of a man serving in the tropics, clear and nut brown, strikingly so amongst a staff of freshoomplexioned Bcamen. As he stood in his green carpeted drawing-room,'• -with, his back to tho open fire and his hands together behind him, he struck me and I think everybody else, as the embodiment of virility, keenness, and canal city. I have seen not a few of our leaders m this war; and more than one has given ( the impression of i t 5 ? an< ?,. n certem weariness. Sir John Jelhcoe gave all of us the odoosite impression. Ho.'is a • man m his prime, well set up. full of vigour, without, a grev hair; keen eyes and a tight, masterful mouth; brisk i n - his movements, direct and outspoken in-his talk. is what ho has always j n ' » v , cry yoking man in his rankand all of us came awav with the impression that he was. obviously 'fmastei £f.i l . ,s i«?\'' and carried his response bilities lightly. He is a man who does not require much > exercise, but when he can find time ne goes ashore on one of *he islands, and has a round on the improvised golf course. The balls are conjlv getting lost in the heather, and there is not too much time either to look for them or to wait for the other players, so it is customary to> nlay straight through from- noI« to hole. I believe Admiral" JeTlicoe's time is something like an hour for sixteen holes. There are few of the social amenities of a golf course; for this particular island has only one inhabitant, the laird himself. THE SILENT FLEET. The Admiral's address to us as tire first party of British journalists to visit the Fleet did not, of course, go verv deeply into naval strategy. Nevertheless, it was a talk of such a frank nature that, one would not think of publishing it. "Wo are sometimes called the Silent Fleet," he said, "and that is what wo want to be." Evening came, and signals fluttered and winked to and fro. Navymen have a delightful way of doing always the right thing 4 and doing it pleasantly.' It is time for us to ."comb" ourselves out of the machinery, and the turrets and tho pleasant cordial wardrooms and the war talk, and to return whence we came. The Com-mander-in-Chief shakes hande warmly with us all, and bop 23 we. have enjoyed onr visit. We are back <igain on the bridge of our black charger; the deep bluo waters widen between us. and - presently we are going full speed ahead down tho impressive tioned avenues of the longships. Battleships of the first class: super battleships of the first-class; oil-burning battleships ; coal-eating battleships. Super-Dreadnoughts, yes. ProDreadnoughts ; not one of them. "What ship i 8 that?" a friend of great experience whispers over my shoulder. "C.O.C. One of Nelson's Admirals." "I tl.ought so. That's him looking over the side." It was Princo Albert back at his post. Cruisers of all classes and types, screening the battleships from " tho possibility of an impossibility. On the cruisers alert little shells, painted khaki, recline in their racks ready to the guns and peep curiously over the side, wondering if we are suspect, and longing to prove it. - Past picket boats of the battlcshros; past a diving boat busily engrossed; nast the trawler patrols: past everything that matters and out again into the "German" Ocean. I don't think!

We have not reached our train again when each of tis received a wireless from the Commander-in-Chief. It had been ench a pleasure to the Grind Fleet t? see us, and they wanted ns t» know it. Just the sarwo Sort of thoughtful little message that a nib. had sent throngh to mo from the TJr» less room to the conning-tower an hour earlier. The compliment wts reciprocated. We had had a delightful day; bnt, more than *nar-. w« pa mo away well content that the Silent Fleet was in good hands, ard that tho iob was beinc: well done. Vigilant t«*nv/!ors standing guard in the northern twilight reminded, na, sbL a train.