THE BATTLECRUISERS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15768, 8 December 1916, Page 8

THE BATTLECRUISERS.

h GLIMPSE OF THE FLEET, THE LUCKY NEW ZEALAND. (FROM out OWN CORBESrOXDENT.) No. 11. LONDON, October 24. As there were no casualties in tho New Zealand at all it was a strange reasoning that led one of the officers (whoso battle station lay amongst the casualties) to conclude, at a certain moment that a lull had fallen on the fighting. A little hie impatient at having so little to do, he decided to come up for a breather and to see how tho land lay. The best coign of vantage he knew of was the superstructure abaft the foremast, and he had just reached this and trained his eyes on the grey featureless horizon when the amidships turret just below him let looso a salvo. The effect was magnetic. Tho concussion split the officer's uniform from throat to feet, and threw him dazed and stunned on the deckhouse. It was tho only casualty on the New Zealand, and goes to show how the British seaman dislikes idleness. When you ask the British sailorman about battles, what he invariably tells you is a series of jerky incidents in the spirit and appetite of the schoolboy describing a football match. Everything is something he has personally enjoyed. We passed the Galatea, the little hornet of a destroyer-leader that first saw the enemy and put tho whole '"show" in motion. It is not true that the sailorman in these days of iron and steam has lost the Nelson eye for beautiful lines. To the landsman Galatea is a species of mechanical tank just liko any other ship. But every sailorman passing a Galatea or a Cordelia—in dock or afloat—will stop his story and invite you to admire her lines. And it is a matter of religion to point out the Tiger as the prettiest ship in the Fleet. ENGADINE GRADUATES. Plenty of people goins abroad in the mean small days Ante 1914 "made the crossing" in tho Channel steamer Engadine, and thought little enough other sea-going qualities no doubt. When the war came they painted ' her grey and sent her northward to a part of tho coastline she had never seen before. They built, moreover, a snail's shell on her back, and pushed her into the water again to carry seaplanes for the fleet. To-day the Engadine lies at a buoy in the battle-cruiser line very proud and full of honour. liovering about the Jutland battle she kept well in touch with the realities of the fray. While her eagles were soaring overhead scouting fo r the Grand 'Fleet, the Engadine herself pried in and out of the battle-line looking for something her own weight. She met tip with the Warrior, limping, staggering dazedly out of the hurricane sweep of tli& German battleship's fire. She had scarcely a punch left in her, but she could still make home with a decent bit of sympathetic help. To her the Engadine opened her heart. Twice the tow-rope parted, but still the Engadine persevered. For ten hours she plugged away at her 13,000 1 - ton tow. and she got" her well away from tho battle area, and patientlv mile on mile towards the English coast. But her own coal capacity was not equal to the task. No bejp arrived. and the moment camo when further towing would leave tho Engadine short of coal to find her own way home. The sea. too, was getting up. So the whole of the survivors of the Warrior—fifty or so had 'been killed in ->tion—were taken aboard the Engadine, the cruiser's seacocks were opened, and she went down liko Grenville's ship "not into the hands of Spain." DESTROYER LORE. The destroyer which took xne to the battle-cruiser fleet this time bore the marks of serious service and a sub., who knew all about it. Ho had been twice torpedoed—once in the King Edward VII. and once in a patrol ship, and as tho worst lie had was four liour s in an open boat, he survived to offer nio the hospitality of the wardroom after. the tradition of subs., and to declare his admiration for the German U-boat man who stuck to his job off 'Malta until ho had put down the cruiser Russell. Would I have a whisky or sherry! I said I would. The boy went on to say that when chasing at sea they could not inhabit the wardroom at all, which did not siirpris e me, seeing it was about Bft by Bft, and Jay on the propeller. But now we were only doing 420. That I heard tho Lieutenant-Commander wlusper to the engine-room. When she was going her full 30 knots two or three days ago a wave fell aboard her and made a tangle of damage below tho bridge. But tho crews of the torpedo-boat-destrovers are accustoincd to draughts, and in any case they get a regular "lay up" for rest. One of these destroyers had a uniquo experience in the great battle. Without warning, a twelve-inch German shell hopped leisurely on board, evidently from a ricochet-, like a flyingfish in the tropics, lay on dock i'or a moment, and then foil down to the deck below and rolled solemnly along until it found a resting-place unexploded just at the mouth of the furnace ! As we neared the Fleet, throe or four cutters from the battle-cruisers were pulling for grim death in the teeth of a bitterly cold breeze, to show which was tho premier ship of the squadron here assembled. Is there any need to ask which? Tli e New Zealand won liotli races, and as wo slid past, the cheering partisans crowded the listing launches to shako hands, and the bagpipes struck up the old triumph slogans of the surrounding hills. Abreast of the Lion, th 0 Tiger, and the Princess Royal we slid. "What a power of deception the Admiralty employs to prove that thev are still afloat! ' THE NEW ZEALAND. And so alongside the New Zealand. Seamen in dirty white are hanging out on planks painting her sides, and more than one of them, without turning his head, cries "Kia Ora" to the oversea visitors. On board there are not many changes. What there are only serve to emphasise the healthy growth of the "regimental" spirit. Everyone in her is thoroughly proud of th e New Zealand. They are convinced she is a iucrkv ship, and they are prouder than most ships of the relics of their battles. "Jutrland, May, lias been added to the earlier inscriptions, "Heligoland, August, 1914," and 'Dogger Bank, January. 1915." There is a great slab of armour punched from a turret on the after-deck, and the wounds caused by tho burst of the 12-inch shell in the deck planks are left to view. She is not a flagship now. it is true, but she is the New Zealand more than ever. It was scarcely surprising that the Canadian members of the party should be more interested in her than in that other vessel in line abreast which bears the name Canada. That is all cf Canada, indeed, that sh e docs bear, for she is merely a South American battleship intercepted in the yards and taken over, an odd figure in the line, with her tall and her odd calibre guns. AYe took luncheon on King George's ship, the Cresccnt, which was actually

at sea in the early months of the war overhauling suspects. The rooms were those the "King had occupied, but the Crescent is now superannuated, doing depot work in tho base. The captain who entertained us was a typical product of British naval policy. Keen on his job, as all our seamen are, ho had been thirty years at sea beforo he 6aw the North Sea, and his introduction was '"in a gale of wind with a torpedo under the stern.'' The Bishop of London has consecrated an altar in the Crescent to commemorate her escape. Tho portrait of tho King hangs in tho wardroom, but the Navy nowadays does not toast his Majesty after each mc>al after the fashion of tho Victorian and Georgian novels. Ther 0 is no need to, for that is quite well understood. THE AUSTRALIA'S BAD LUCK. Our visit to the Australia was to mo most interesting. The Australia and the New Zealand are as near as possible sister ships, the advantage being with the former. For two long years, like the good sports they are, the Australians kept their dreary vigil., and did their drab duty in far-off waters. Her big guns, I suppose, have never been fired in auger, for tho German supply ship Eleanor "Woermann is tho only tliinrr she has encountered. There are thosij who think that her hunter's instinct, freed from distant control, would have brought tho fcycharnhorst and the Gneisenau to their doom without even Cradoek's tragedy off Coronel. but they did not complain, and in tho fulness of time thev eam e to tho battleline in the North Sea, confident that Defore long they would meet a worthy foe. There are seers and prophets in every ship, and superstition runs through the lower deck as through the bazaars of the East. One of the Australia's prophets, a yeoman signaller, who, as sucii. accompanied the Admiral in the New Zealand and saw the battle, wliispcred to me the secret of tho day. They had inner information that "the German fleet would be out on the 21st." It was not necessary to add that if the German fleet were out the British fleet would meet it, and then — Th e finest possible thing for the Australian Navy, which has richly deserved encouragement, -will be the happy conjuncture which will let the Australia's great guns at length open on the Hun battle-cruisers. It cannot give her any honour to which sho is not now entitled, for, like every other ship, sho has done her drab and dreary duty well and uncomplainingly, and without the occasional tonic of a fight. Talking about tonics, perhaps one of tho most efficacious and humble tonics of the fleet at war is the unliving superstition of the lower deck. When the ratings whispered to me that the Germans "would b rt out ou the 21st," they were not tho least discouraged by the fact (which they volunteered) that they had expected them out on some other quite ■ recent date. Nor had they the slightest idea that th 0 21st was Trafalgar Day. Hope springs eternal and keeps the sailor keen.