MORE PATROL VESSELS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 9

MORE PATROL VESSELS

PROMPT ACTION

DESTROYERS LEAVE FOR THE

MEDITERRANEAN

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received September 4, 11.30 a.m.)

RUGBY, September 3,

In accordance with the decision announced yesterday, the eleventh destroyer division of the sixth flotilla' has been, ordered to sail today to reinforce the destroyer strength of the Fleet in the western Mediterranean. The vessels are the Fury and the Forester from Portsmouth, and the Fortune and Firedrake from Chatham. The, leaders of the sixth flotilla and the twelfth division are on patrol off the northern coast of Spain.

The present strength of the Mediterranean Fleet is as follows:—Four capital ships, the battleships Barham (flagship of Admiral Sir Dudley Pound), and Malaya, and the battle-cruisers Hood and Renown; three heavy cruisers, London, Devonshire, Sussex; five cruisers, Delhi, Dispatch, Penelope, Galatea, and Arethusa; one aircraftcarrier, the Glorious; and destroyers, 24 organised in flotillas and 4 otherwise employed; other craft, 7 submarines, 6 motor torpedo-boats, 7 mine-sweepers, 1 net-layer, 4 depot, repair, and supply ships, 1 escort vessel, 1 mine-layer, 4 drifters, 1 tug, and 1 hospital ship. In the western Mediterranean there are at present the following vessels:— The cruisers Galatea (flagship of RearAdmiral J. F. Somerville) and Penelope; destroyers, and flotilla leader Hardy and Hasty, Hotspur, Hostile, Havock, Harward, Hero, Hyperion, and Vanoce, the last-named being an older type of destroyer stationed at Gibraltar.