GUARDING THE SEAS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 70, 20 September 1939, Page 8

GUARDING THE SEAS

There is one marked difference between the opening of the present war and that of the Great War in 1914, and that is the preparedness of both sides for immediate action. War came somewhat suddenly in 1914, and it took time for armies to mobilise and march and for fleets to put to sea. No such delay has occurred on the outbreak of war today. The Nazis, with their pians prepared and positions taken up, struck at once in Poland. At sea German submarines had already scattered on the trade routes when Britain and France came in, and claimed an early victim in the liner Athenia. In 1914 it was not until September 5 that jhe first sinking occurred—that of the small cruiser Pathfinder off the Firth of Forth. But' in,: the same month three obsolete but fully-manned cruisers —the Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir— were torpedoed in quick succession off the coast of Holland, with the loss of 1400 lives. Next month the battleship Audacious ran on a mine near Lough Swilly, off the north of Ireland, and sank. These were heavy losses. Against them in the present war, with a vastly s greater number of enemy submarines at sea over a much wider area, there have been about a dozen merchant vessels lost, with the Athenia still the most important, but only one British warship, the old aircraft-carrier Courageous, the sinking of which was announced by the Admiralty on Monday. As against this, it is believed that the submarine which sank the Courageous was. itself destroyed. It is certain that several other submarines have "met a similar fate, while others, again, are believed to have been eliminated from one cause or another.

While, as the war proceeds, casualties in merchant shipping and among naval vessels must be expected, it is extremely unlikely that the submarine menace will assume the proportions it did in 1917, when Britain was in actual peril of blockade for a few weeks. This was met. by the institution of the convoy system, after nearly three years of war. Today the convoy system is already coming into being. Similarly the means of protection against submarines are vastly improved from what they were in the Great War. On the other hand, them is probably more danger Strom air

attack. Against these dangers to Britain's sea-borne commerce, vital to her existence, the Navy has taken all precautions with the silent efficiency for which the Senior Service is renowned. In respect of surface craft Nazi Germany is far less formidable than the Germany of the Kaiser, and the British air raid on the German North Sea naval bases accounted for at least one, if not more, of the few capital ships Germany possesses. The British Navy, in co-operation with the French navy, has the Avide and varied task of keeping open the channels of sea-borne commerce, of protecting the transport and supplies of British forces overseas, and of dealing with any attempt of the German fleet to emerge from the shelter of its bases. In addition .there is the duty of maintaining a rigorous blockade of German ports and depriving the enemy of supplies by sea through neutral countries. It is a difficult and delicate role to play, but one with which the Navy has been familiar through the ages. The Navy may be expected to maintain its historical traditions in the fulfilment of its mission.