LAST OF THE MONITORS

Evening Star, Issue 17792, 14 October 1921, Page 7

LAST OF THE MONITORS

first sTxir;i-;x-xrFi r;r>:s, [Fito:,! Of'; Lo.vtvx Coi!tu:si’CoPi-;:-rr.'j A:lltt 21. The twelve iTiindiiii);:; monitors in the fleet have been placed on the sales list, and these inferos Inn; cinft v\ ill no longer figure il’ ’.lie Rviti'U Navy, liny n ore a wav-thnv yi'nv.lii. and. in spite oi the food work done hy them oft the I’elgian coast and out Kr;t. they v.vrc .V.-.vrys looked upon as somethin)! n: a joke. Their incongruous shape and h"v speed positively invited the irreverent to poke fun fit them ; but nave.! archil-;- K horned a lot about underwater jvot-' , cti , ui trom thorn. s hey were the* first. crab, to he fitted with “ bulges,'' and the story is to id that the first one to he hit by a torpedo was nn- ’ aware- of the mishap until it was noticed that her speed had increased live knots. They were also the first vessel?, in tnv British Navy to carry I6in guns, those of the Marshal Noy class mounting weapons oi this size made in America. Lnforlunafelv, our con.-in;; acre;-? the Atlantic had been rather premature, and there great irons after a little use ‘‘dropped like a lily on its stalk,” -as Kipling has it in his ballad of the ‘ Gamnerdown.’ and their calibration was the despair oi the gunnery mathematicians. When Mr A. J. Balfour was at the Admiralty he re plied to the representations oi some ms!, const town? which had been bombarded by German battle-cruisers that “ certain units of the Grand Fleet would ho stationed further smith.” The unit? sent were a few of the older monitors, which ended their days in little Fast Anglian harbors, giving hy their pressne* a tonoliinp fr-n-o of fveurify (o nervous rnavors and I own councils.