A BOMBARDMENT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 283, 30 November 1915, Page 6

A BOMBARDMENT.

WHAT IT MEANS

A TITAN2C ENTERPRISE

■In -the course of an interesting article in Mie London Bystander, some idea m given of the great work entailed in carrying out a bombardmerit by the fleet. "You will have read," says■■ th« writer, "in your morning papers the bald announcement that 'Vessels or the British Fleet yesterday bombarded the Belgian coast as tar as Ostend.' . ~ .„/ "This terse communication ysm probably not strike, you as anything more out of the* way than the daily information tiiiat 'Artillery .activity, continues in the Vosges,' or 'Fighting with grenade is reported from thej Argonne.' ; . "Yet in cold reality the organisation required for a flotilla of ship* with tho accompanying host_;ot satellites to cross the-water and leave a card on the Belgian coast is_an ente^prke th>at is little short of Titanic; only after weeks of. careful planning, 'tireless labor, and splitting departmental headaches is the procession m readiness to weigh anchor and steam away on a mission of .concentrated hate And what a procession it is! e'i swiftly as they came. . "Instead, a veritable pageant of moving crait-craft of every vAriety and dimension-is stretcheo I^os the sea until lost to>iew uu W- crest of the horizon, a picture le'Siiincr the glories of the great Armfer'eiice of the- slow-moving circle, the inner protective reinforcement or dcsHyers- and' torpedo : boats clustered about the fighting ships with the solicitude'of a herd of she-elephants around the lonely bull in the presence of the hunter, tho whole vast machine steaming leisurely across; vie ocean at horse-team speed symbolical of Britsh phlegm! . "It requires a good deal in these days of blood and,iron to upset the equilibrium of the Belgians or to rouse them to any pitch of. excitement, and it was qmte surprising lo observe the gentle flutter of interest $i?W> oVer tbo-countryade m the neighborhood of operations. At a point along the ccost where ■w> idekl.view is offered, hurrying Ilom humanity on bicycles and bony hacks foregather at the crack of dawn, v, motley throng, converging from eveiy Stof the Sompass, nntil the neighSorhood bogins to present the cheering aspect of a racing week at Newmarket. Lurching heavily through the sand the man with pastry wafers stumbles from group to group squat- . ted en famille on the beach refreshthe -bodyifrfthl small -whvte gripes trapped inthe columns of the tocaf newspaper, and discussing .the lortcomings of the next door neighbors. There is no exuberance of spirit. ' They cannot forget that it is feian soil "that suffers. If it had only been the German coast. me crowd cheers. respectfully-and B^«^--1V when the large shells from the German batteries fall wide of thej ai■jjefc, sending up a column .of ***#*; Suite 60 feet in height, and they groan quietly in . sympathy i when the marmites fall dangerously close to the ships.- It is a restful picture. . "From a point of vantage more intend one was able to look down upon the target of the' British guns. It Was <*ood to see the big navaL shells thumping, into -Westendfe. A fog ot smoke" and dust hung, over the town like a pall partially obliterating it from'view! And it was not given toOstcnd to escape lightly from the ordeal. Early to suffer was _the Osteiid lighthouse, used by the Oeitnans~i:6 guide their Zeppelins, wlncn was" seen to vanish from tamatiken ih a fountain of dust and debris to the. physical detriment of the Boche ©Jiaao-ed in obeervinf from the root. %lore-than forty allied aeroplanes oa-operated with the fleet in the good work of hammering the Htins,/some in bombing the • Ostond aerodrome, owners . keeping hostile aircraft; dt a anS-.others again scanning ■tiie seas for German submarines. Spotting corrections were carried out both by aeroplanes- and by kite balloons suspended from a ship. • '-, "Tlie panorama from above was wonderful. The entire ocean seemed dotted with ships of divers shapes and "sizes, the torpedo boats steaming this way and that like a terrier that has lost his master, the mine-sweepers silting every .yard of water with feverish energy, the big ships, firing away like good 'uns, then moving oil —dignified always—for a brief constitutional before returning to the fray, in this way upsetting the calculations of-the German gunners, the destroyers cir-cV'ng abont their respective monitors like ducklings roundi a pond, their wash in the*sunEght a gleaming silver snake losing itself in the horizon's edge. The firing ceases as sudd-only as it began. TGie great Armada heads slowly in the direction.of Dover, and. steams quietly ay/ay as coolly and deliberately as it canie. 5'