AT SEA WITH A DESTROYER.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 128, 1 June 1908, Page 3

AT SEA WITH A DESTROYER.

THE PRICE WE PAY FOR NAVAL

EFFICIENCY

By a Naval Officer

(From the Daily Mail.)

"A dog's life !" That is the way the naval officer of years and experience describes existence in a destroyer such as the Tiger, which,- as reported in our news columns, has been sunk with the loss of thirty-five lives during night manoeuvres in the English Channel.

The work is hard; the food often atrocious when the vessel is at sea, for the simple reason that in anything like rough, weather it is impossible to cook or eat a meal in comfort. The space below deck is cramped and confined, intensely hot in summer, bitterly cold in winter, for the plates of the vessel .are of the thinnest and conduct the heat or cold to perfection. All weight is cut/ down to the utmost, or was cut down in the older destroyers, of which the Tiger was one, and when the enormously powerful engines were running at top speed the vibration was consequently most trying. The older craft displace from 300 tons upwards, and they are built for the most perilous work that falls to fighting men in war. In blockade it is" their duty to close in at night upon the hostile port, facinpr the danger of floating mines, which again and again damaged the Japanese destroyers off Port Arthur. At otherf times they may have to attack the enemy's battleships.

"CRUEL HARD LIFE."

The crew number some sixty officers and men, the officers being a lieutenant, a sub-lieutenant, a gunner, and an engineer-lieutenant. There is no doctor, for the simple reason that there is no room fcjr him. The officers are berthed aft in tiny cupboards opening out of a little wardroom, or in the wardroom, where they try to eat and sleep when off duty. But their number is so small that they are almost continuously at work, and hence, owing to the speedy exhaustion of her crew, a destroyer cannot long keep at sea. The seamen are berthed forward, and sleep in what are generally known as "lammy suits," thick warm garments suited to. the chilly. temperature of a destroyer's forward compartment. All the crew receive ''hard-lying" money, or a small addition to their pay to recompense them for the hardships undergone. The' work is, indeed, "cruel hard," as they would tell the public, and nowhere is it harder than in the stokehold and engine-room when the destroyer is running at any speed in bad weather. -

For then she tosses and pitches, flinging the men this way' and that amid the whirling machinery, while the battening down of the hatches makes the temperature and smell almost insupportable. _ The deck-when the boat is running at high speed in a seaway is almost 1 continuous^ swept by the sea. . Everyone is in oilskins, and the waves from time to time break over the little bridge forward, from which the vessel is worked. The severity of the discipline is greatly relaxed, so long as the men do their work, and they are permitted to smoke and enjoy themselves—if en*joyment is possible—at hours when in the orthodox warship they would be doing drill or holystoning the decks. The officers in charge of a destroyer are expected., whether in peace or war, to do and dare. If they run their boats ashore in manoeuvres, their offence is usually lightly visited, since it is realised that "nothing great is achieved by the man who fears the shore." It is a great sight to watch, as the writer did, from the bridge of a destroyer, a flotilla moving out at night to the attack. The boats pass out to sea silently, without a spark of light showing, the officers on the bridges or in little conning-towers watching the horizon carefully. INTO ACTION. Outside the port the flotilla forms up in order of attack, and increases speed till under the bows of-each boat shows a white cloud of spray. The torpedo tubes are ready and loaded, each with its Whitehead—though of' late the practice use of torpedoes has been forbidden in the British Navy in most cases for economy. Then the search for the hostile fleet "begins. It may be a long and tedious search, for the enemy is certain to be cruising with lights out^and to be do-1 ing his best to elude the assailants he so much fears. But now and again the destroyers pick up the adversary. Then comes the swift, daring rush in upon him, at about twenty knots, not at top speed, for at that speed funnels flare and the ] spray is apt to besfcray the assailant. Suddenly, out of the night, flashes the intense glare of a searchlight. The j boats have been seen ! Other searchlights are turned on, and a scene of wild confusion follows. Through a rattle of machine guns and the rapid reports of the smaller quick-firers on board the great ships which loom up, the boats dash in upon their prey and fire their torpedoes, j The odds are all in their favour when j once they have found the hostile fleet, j for hurried gun fire from a Battleship I in the darkness at a rapidly moving target is not likely to hit anything, and a destroyer running twenty knots requires a good deal of stopping. • In a recent attack by the Portsmouth torpedo flotilla upon the Chan- j nel Fleet two or three battleships were hit, and in war would have been put! out of action

In most navies the orders to the destroyers' officers are simple and stern. In the German Navy they are directed to close in to within pistolshot before firing their torpedoes, and to reck nothing of the loss of the destroyer so long as she takes with her to the bottom a hostile battleship.