REMARKABLE SHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 99, 24 October 1938, Page 5

REMARKABLE SHIP

H.M.S. MAIDSTONE

SUBMARINE BASE

MANY NOVEL FEATURES

One of the most remarkable vessels recently added to the Royal Navy has not been built primarily to fight, although she can do that if the need should arise. This is H.M.S. Maidstone, which was built by Messrs. John Brown and Co., at Clydebank, and left Portsmouth a short time ago to take up duty as depot-ship of the Ist Submarine Flotilla in the Mediterranean, says the "Marine Magazine." She replaces the Cyclops, now 33 years old, which was originally a liner and was adapted as a submarine parent ship.4 , The Maidstone has cost about a million pounds, a large sum for a nonfighting unit, but a good investment all the same, for she has the means to keep other war vessels in fighting trim. When the old Cyclops came into the Navy,, submarines were much smaller and less powerful than they are today. The largest were the. E class, of 660, tons, carrying 18in torpedo tubes and one 3in gun, with a crew of 30. Today, the submarines for which the Maidstone will provide are of between 1475 and 1850 tons, with six or eight 21in torpedo tubes, and three guns, and crews of about 50 and 60 each. Their equipment, too, is much more elaborate. MANY WORKSHOPS. The Maidstone is fitted with modern tool equipment, and all classes of submarine repair work can be done in her workshops, which include a foundry, coppersmiths', plumbers', and carpenters' shops, heavy and light mat chine shops, and electrical and torpedo repair shops. The workshops are well lit and ventilated. Particularly light and airy is the electrical artificers' workshop on the upper deck. Instead of a box-hole" in misery, as one officer put it, the E.A. can work here in comfort on fire-control mechanisms and similar delicate instrument work.

The heavier repair shops below are equally well equipped, and to move machinery between th*e ship and submarines alongside there are two electric cranes, one of two tons to port, the other of six tons to starboard. In the torpedo body store are racks for the spare torpedoes of submarines. The facilities for recharging submarine batteries provide that two. vessels can be treated at a time, one on either side. Smaller generators can supply light to the submarines alongside. The Maidstone can "mother" 12 submarines, but normally, she will have seven. Apart from her own crew of 350, there is ample accommodation for nine submarine crews on board. AMENITIES FOR PERSONNEL. But the great feature of the Maidstone is the improvement in the conditions under which her personnel will, live. She is the star ship of the Navy for comfort, and.rightly so, for service in the cramped space of a submarine) is at best arduous, and when off duty the crews of these vessels deserve a little consideration on board their depot ship. \ In the Maidstone everything possible I has been done to provide officers and men with good quarters, baths, and recreational facilities. Park seats are provided on the upper deck. Hot and cold water is laid on in all the officers' cabins, and in the wash places of the ship's company. There are dressingrooms attached to the wash-places, with I lockers, so 'that men from the engineroom, for instance, can. shift from their I working rig in comfort. The, hand laundry, with its deep. enamel sinks, would be the envy of many housewives, and in the crew's drying-rooms there are facilities for .ironing, with points for electric irons.

In the ratings' mess there are armchairs, and cushioned mess-stools, chromium-plated hooks for coats,' and such-like improvements. The messstools are likely to be very popular. They have rubber seats, with waterproof covering, and leather ends —a great contrast to the old, hard wooden forms. An improved type of deck covering material, known as corkoid, has been introduced, and in the large recreation space (which has an ice cream and soda bar attached) it is of a pleasing pattern. A CIRCULATING LIBRARY. In the sick bay there are 20 cots, with room for more if needed; an X-ray room, and an" operating room, with every modern appliance; an isolation ward with its own bathrooms and lavatories; and a'dispensary. The Maidstone is the first ship to have one of the new circulating libraries introduced by the Admiralty, with 800. volumes, and there is also a bookstall. The canteen is arranged so that it can not only be well stocked, but that all the stock is accessible as in an up-to-date ship. Lastly, there is a chapel in which officers ana men may return thanks fox* the very great improvements which have been incorporated m their ship. For protection against air attack, tne Maidstone has a powerful anti-aircraft battery of 4.5 in guns and multiple pom-poms. At the same time, new arrangements have been introduced whereby the whole ship can be darkened from one master switch. By this, on receipt of a warning of air attack, the whole ship can be "blacked-out at a moment's notice, and special consideration has also been given to the ventilation, so that the ship can easily be rendered gas-tight