SMALL, BUT EFFICIENT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 210, 3 June 1935, Page 9

SMALL, BUT EFFICIENT

Britain’s New Cruiser ARETHUSA DESCRIBED 1 London, May 31. Mr. Hector Bywater, naval and shipping correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” says that Britain’s latest cruiser, H.M.S. Arethusa, is the cheapest and smallest warship built since the war. He says that the vessel holds the Navy’h—and probably the world’s—record for long-distance steaming. She has turbines of 64,000 h.p., which drive her at a speed of nearly 33 knots. The chief novelty consists of a fluid flywheel (hydraulic clutch), enabling engineers to switch over from the main engines to a small cruising turbine. This is so efficient and economical in steam that working alone it will drive the ship at a speed of over 21 knots or, at a lower speed, propel her halfway round the world. A FAMOUS NAME The “Saucy Arethusa” HALS. Arethusa, like her famous predecessor of 1914, is the “name ehip” of a new type of light cruiser of which four are being built for the Royal Navy. ■ The others are Galatea, Aurora and Penelope —these names being 'borne by tlie last Arethusa’s sister ships during the Great War. The new Arethusa, with a length of 506 feet, a breadth of 51 feet, and a mean draught of 13 feet 10 inches, will have a standard displacement of 5200 tons, making her somewhat larger than the Dunedin and Diomede. She will be fitted with twin-screws driven by geared turbines of 04,000 horse-power, giving her a speed of 324 knots. Her armament will comprise six 6-inch guns, four 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, and 18 smaller guns and an undisclosed number of torpedo, tubes. t Launched on March 6, 1934, at Chatham, by Lady Tyrwhitt, wife of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, the Arethusa will be commanded by Captain W. G. Tennant, M.V.0.; and will probably serve in the Mediterranean. Some nine ships of the Royal Navy have been named Arethusa since 1759, when the French Arethuse, 32-gun ship, was captured by the frigates Thames and Venus, and added to the British fleet, In 1778 she fought a famous action with tlie French 40-gun frigate Belle Poule, which was captured; and it was this exploit which inspired the well-known ballad of "The Saucy Arethusa.” At the beginning of the Great War, the last Arethusa, commissioned on August 26, 1914, and flying the broad pennant of Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich Force, went, almost straight from the dockyard into notion, taking a prominent part in the action of Heligoland Bight. She engaged two German cruisers early in the action and was severely damaged, all her guns but one being disabled. Repairs were quickly made and the Arethusa- saw several hours’ more fighting, until the battle-cruisers finished the business, the Germans having lost three cruisers and. a destroyer, and'well oyer 1000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners. The Arethusa also took part in the Dogger Bank action on January 25, 1910, engaging the Blucher, which had been disabled by Beatty’s battle-cruisers, and subsequently rescuing some ,260 survivors when the German ship went down. On February 10, 1916, when leading the light eruiser squadron back to Harwich. the Arethusa struck a mine and began to settle down. The flotilla leader Lightfoot and the destroyer Loyal (the latter commanded by Lieutenant-Com-mander F. Burges Watson) tried to tow the Arethusa, but failed in the heavy sea. The Arethusa drove on to a shonl. from which all salvage operations failed to shift her, and in August, 1916, she was abandoned and left to break up.