ABOUKIR CRESSY AND HOGUE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 240, 24 September 1914, Page 6

ABOUKIR CRESSY AND HOGUE

THE SHIPS AND THEIR OFFICERS. I The three lost, cruisers were sister ships and their armouring consisted of a 6-incli ueit amidships, continued to the bows- two inches thick, and of I a 3-inch deck and 5-inch bulkheads. ! The belt of armour was 230 feet long and 111 feet deep. 5 feet of it being below water. Their horse-power i was 21,000. 'They used to be very ! good cruisers, but for some years have been wearing out, and as far as fast steaming was concerned were good for only „ short spurts. The headquarters of the 7th Cruiser [Squadron to which they belonged is • the Nore. The Cressy class are the j oldest armoured cruisers m the [navy. Including the three reiuainj ing Cressys there are 31 “armoured j cruisers left, exclusive of the later ‘battle-cruisers.’’ I A recent Navy list gives the .names of the officers as follows:—

Aboukir. —Commander. William F. Sells : Lieutenant-Commanders, James S. Parker and Joseph D. Ellaby"; Engineer Commander, William R. Lawton; Chief-Carpenter, ■ George AV. Robinson ; Gunner. AVil--1 liain J. Shrubsall; Artificer-Engin- ! eer. Lumley Robinson. Cressy. — Captain, Ernest S. Carey : Commander, Bertram AV. L. I Nicholson ; Lieutenant-Commanders, AV. B. AVatkins Grubb and Bernard N. Harvey; Lieutenant Jeremiah McCarthy ; Engineer - Commander, Robert H. Grazebrook; Staff-Sur-geon, Edward C. Sawdy ; Fleet Pay master, Henry de C. AVard ; assistant Paymaster. David S. Lambert; Gunner. Albert J Dougherty ; Car neuter. James B. Clark; ArtificerErgineer, Frederick Monks. Hogue—Commander. Reginald A. Norton : Lieutenant. Richard B. AA’ard : Engineer-Commander. AAmlter Stokes : Chief Carpenter. AVilliam H. Reed ; Gunner. William J. AVal lace : Artificer-Engineer, Thomas A. E. Rush. The Aboukir and Hogue carried a complement of 700 men, the Cressy

UNDER AVATER AVARFARE AND ITS RISKS. Can Britain retaliate? She did so in the “cutting-out” operation off Heligoland, aided by’ the haze. But, generally speaking, it is hard for her to hit any German warships protected by’ fortifications. To do so, she must fake great risks. In the Heligoland operation she was for tunate. But luck is not always on one side. Britain’s aggressive role must inevitably involve attendant risks. In these days of under water

warfare, no blockade is absolutely safe. But between the sinking of the Cressys, and the sweeping away of Dreadnoughts by submarines as suggested by’ Sir Percy Scott, there is a great gap. Those to whom to-day’s news comes as a shock should remember that on the eve of war such happening were generally expected. AA r hat has unprepared people for them is the quiet unexpected passivity of .German naval methods up to the present time. That passivity 7 never did bear the appearance of permanence. The German navy simply had to do something to justify its cost. About seven weeks ago a contemporary writer of much ability’ wrote in this vein ; “Engagements be-

tween the multitude of torpedo craft and destroyers that infest the North Sea at present must be of daily and nightly occurrence. The hostile flotillas must be thinning each other out with horrible rapidity, and yet no word of these grim encounters has been allowed to reach the ears of the public. Later, the Admiralty denied that any such encounters had taken place. But that is not to say that they are not coming. In fact, they are overdue. Germany does not seem to have many submarines, but they are mostly large and up-to-date. During 1913, it is stated, she had 24 in commission. It is said that in 1913 she projected a new type with a displacement of 800 tons, length 213 ft, beam 20ft ; with three torpedo tubes and two guns mounted forward. The North German Gazette says that little is heard of the submarine service, “for in this department the naw does its work -without desiring publicitv.” It is stated that the new torpedoes have a range of 7000 yards, a maximum speed of 38 knots, and a bursting charge of 2901 b of explosive.