MAGIC NAVIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1388, 21 November 1918, Page 7

MAGIC NAVIES.

) STILL THE BREED TELLS. RUSHING MONSTER SHIPS | GIANT GUNS. (By H. Campbell Jones, Managing Edilor of The Sun, Sydney, with the Imperial j Press Delegation). LONDON, Aug. 21. • The greatest fleet in the world; the sccJ ond strongest fleet in the world. Both are possessed by the British Empire. Sydney sleeps soundly; civilisation is safe because this Empire of ours owns a navy without parallel in the annals of this old earth. There is nothing else like it. There has never iu’on anything approaching it. Other nations in the past have lorded it over one or two oceans, hut none has ever been able to assert its supremacy in the seven seas with such irrefragable evidence of predominance. I To be privileged to sec the sea strength of Great Britain and her Dominions is to realise why the German High Sea Fleet remains snugly tucked away in homo snug waters. To challenge superiority would be madness, and the German Admiralty is not mad —at least not - at present. JULES OF WARSHIPS.

i Those of ns who watched the Great White Fleet of America, powerful battleships, plod ponderously up our land-locked harbours, experienced the thrill which springs from the. visualising of a country’s might and majesty concentrated and expressed in ships of war. I Picture them, if you can, not, great ships, * but miles of greater ships. And then remember that this amazing aggregation of battleships and battle cruisers and cruisers and destroyers and submarines only represent a majority of the wondrous Navy which has foiled the Hohcnzollern aspira tions. t The rest are elsewhere by the tens and 1 hundreds and thousands. Never did the sun rise on such a stupendous massing of floating fortresses. There they- lay, not in single lino, but in line after lino from horizon t<. horizon—and beyond, each one a large village in man-power, each one a Gibraltar in war dynamics, cadi one the

' supreme symbol of massive potency. BACK FROM JUTLAND. Th ere were moored all the famous warships of our far-flung Empire, the enormous battleship which limped back from Jutland, the mammoth battle cruiser which the Germans sank in their communiques, the heavy craft and the light craft, the avengers and gadflies who have come , through the tornadoes of destruction in the < North Sea and arc pining to gel at the Germans again. From end to end of the lano which seemed to stretch to the crack of doom, were ships which chased the Germans back to their mine fields, some of them wobbly with wounds, some perforated like coland- ! ers, some battle red nearly beyond rccogni(ion.

On none was there any sign of the dint or smash of German shells. They swing (o the tide, sound? and staunch, ready to renew the combat at a moment’s notice. Nothing perhaps more convinces one of the efficiency the British Navy than the swiftness with which the ugly scars of war are effaced. Tie' fleet of to day might be bidden to a wedding. MANY CHANGES. Of changes in construction there have been many. There is nothing of the Bourbon about our Admiralty. They have not forgot ton the lessons of yesterday. They are not too proud to be taught by the enemy. The theory of yesterday is the accomplished fact of to-day. The objectives remain the same —speed, defensive resistance, and power of gunnery; but the means of attaining them have been tiunsformed. The last word is never said. Our Admiralty improves upon improvement. No commercial profit seeking corporation was over so keen for modernisation. Our navy is infinitely faster, more powerful, and better protected than our most skilled experts dreamed of even a decade ago. It could say without idle boast, “Come, the whole world.” And the glory of its achievement is that it has set itself the highest standard of attainment, notwithstanding that it has the whole-hearted co-operation of the doughty fleets of France and Italy, of America and Japan. Assurance has been made double sure. And daily it becomes surer, MECHANICAL MIRACLES. Miracles of science, marvels of mechanical ingenuity, have been combined to maintain the Empire’s bulwark. A saunter down these lanes of frowning grey annihilation reveal not one but a myriad ways of confounding our enemies. It were a million times better for fritz to bo a doorkeeper in Kiel than venture into the North Sea. r l ho most pronounced pessimist within our national family could not deny the maritime genius of our race after studying our stupenodiis. fleet, and the ingenuity of the shipbuilder is not yet spout-, lie moves from one masterpiece to another. The triumph of yesterday is the Has-Been of to morrow.

Nowhere does the spectator better appreciate tho truth of tho French adage, “Everything passes” than when steaming amongst the warships of Great Britain. Every branch of tho service is constantly going one better. Tho prodigious battle cruisers aro no longer the pride of the navy. r I licy are vin ordinaire. The colossal battleships are no more the awed focus of naval thought. They aro only dates of the calendar of seapower. SPEED AND SIZE GROW. There are larger battleships, greater battle-cruisers. Men spoke with bated breath of 17 knots as a record speedy for a gia.nt warship at the beginning of this century. Already twice that speed is taken a.i a matter of course. Monster guns drop monster shells of terrific explosive power away across tho horizon on to swift running targets as accurately a:- a crack marksman bundles over the tin birds in a. pea. rifle saloon. It is all incredible, imponderable, being closer to magic than any other factor in our Imperial life. Always we have to return to the fact that vessels of war fade faster even than butterflies. 'I hey arc hardly on the high seas before they are obsolescent. Looking at the British Fleet, probably £500,001,000 are spread before astonished eyes. Ten years is the longest span of life which any lighting admiral will give a warship. Half that is about all it can hope to remain in even the second lino of battle. ’lhink, then, of what wc owo to the British taxpayer who provides nine-tenths of the money for this drain upon the cxeln cpier. Sea -[tower is world domination, but il has to bo pairl for. AUSTRALIA'S BIG SHIP. Australia voting money for her battlecruiser. and New Zealand likewise, thought that she had done something very material to assist the Empire. At the moment il was. But it was actually more moral than material. Today neither tho Australia nor the New Zealand can remain ninny months more in the battle squadron of which they are integral parts. Their speid is too crabbed, their armour too thin, their guns too light. 'I hey must give place to other -hips of increased power. Their day is gone, except in a secondary sense. Only the best arc admitted to the front lighting-line. Six short years have sped since wc foregathered on tho quarter-duck of tho Australia to celebrate her commissioning. Those six years have placed her in the aged class. Quickly as racehorses they have their crowded hour, and pass. THE SAME JACK TAR. It is tho same with the personnel. Of the original officers and crew not a tithe remain. Nothing could better illustrate the tremendous expansion of the Navy than their transfer elsewhere. All the trained men have been needed to stiffen tho new crews in ships which have just joined tho

lino. Tlio process has almost stripped Uic 1 older sliips of their old companies. Tens of thousands of lusty sailors have been placed on the new types of ships, and they have needed the companionship of proved salts. One of the miracles of our Navy is that it hits grown so colossally without, in the slightest, degree, impairing its efficiency. New wine has been poured into now bottles. The Jack Tar of 1918 is the same JackTar who won at Trafalgar, even though ho could no more use grappling irons and cutlass 1,0-day than the gunner accustomed to black powder and round shot could manipulate a modern ,big gun. But the breed and the spirit has come down the decades unchanged. TOUGH AND HARDY.

As in the days of Nelson, so in the days of Beatty, personnel and morale are the final deciding factors. Our officers and our men arc chips of the old block. Of the comfort of the land-lubbor they know little or nothing. They are hardy men trained in a toughening school. Every warship is a feat in organisation. If the same utilisation of opportunities were made on shore, we would believe that our governments wore of divine origin. No boosted factory dare challenge comparison with a light cruiser, much less a destroyer, for the conservation of space, the development of energy, and the quickening of production. Without any vaunt, the British seaman takes what is going as his appointed lot, and his officers are of the same mind. And also without any spoken work they accept incredible risks as though life consisted of dodging \ death. j There arc parts to be played in our navy which can only bo tilled by men who know] before they take up their task that their j chance of surviving is less than one in ten thousand. With them the only alternatives are death of a V.C. YOUTH WILL BE SERVED.

Youth lias its way right through the commands. Of dug-outs none are seen on the sea. By far the greater bulk of the fighting officers are under 40 years of age. The fact might easily Ixj missed. I Overwhelming responsibility ages a naval man very rapidly. CVowsfcct cheat the eye into thinking that a captain of 35 is a veteran of 50. The rear-admiral is old who counts more years. Men must bo in their prime- to prevail in ocean fighting. The call may come at any instant, and that vast Armada lying so lazily at anchor where no German submarine can penetrate, will instantly surge into effective activity. Its antennae stretch to Kiel Canal. Lot the enemy leave his moorings, and in the twinkling of an eye squadron after squadron of first-class fighting ships will sweep to sea at a pace which the fastest liner cannot achieve. Some faint conception of this wonderful spectacle was gained from seeing a battle squadron steaming to anchorage in stalely strength after a stunt “somewhere.” Its kingly progress through its compeers was the perfection of masculine magnificence. Next morning of that amazing assemblage of warships few remained. In the break of dawn they bad disappeared. With hundreds upon hundreds of vessels our naval chiefs shame the cleverest stage magician.

DRAKE’S MANTLE. Upon them lias descended the mantle of Drake. “There must ho a beginning of any great matter,” lie.said,” but tho continuing until the end, until it is thoroughly finished yields the true glory.” Upon the front of the bridge of the ships of our Navy are burnished copper scrolls bearing the living legends, “Dogger Bank,” “Jutland, ’’ “Heligoland," and other records of famous fights in tho Seven Seas. They arc the beginning. The Navy is imbued with tho intention of “coniinning unto the