NAMES OF WARSHIPS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 7

NAMES OF WARSHIPS

The Admiralty has looked to naval history in solving tiie problem of christening the new ships in the 1938 programme. Temeraire, the mime of one of tiie new battleships, dates back nearly 150 years. Captured' from the French at the Battle of the Nile, the original Temeraire became one of England’s 'twooden walls” against Napoleon and played a big part in Nelson's victory at Trafalgar. Some names go back much further than that. It is claimed that, the cruiser Dragon had a prototype in 101.",. Altogether there have been 18 Dragons in the navy. Another name in the 1938 programme is Lion, which will always lie associated witli Earl Beatty and the Battles of Dogger Bank and .Jutland. That flagship was the fourteenth Lion in the navy. J,ord Beatty provides a mime for one of tiie liattlesliips under construction. This, like the Jellieoe and the King George V, is, of course, new in (lie navy. It is likely that one of the two battleships will be built at Cyldebank, while the other ' will probably l>e built at Tyneside or Birkenhead; but it is difficult at (lie moment to find vacant shi]>ways. as there are 19 ships either building or ordered. Beside the two larger battleships, orders will be placed for four 8000-ton cruisers, an aircraft, carrier, three mine layers, and a ferry steamer.