THE 17 INCH GERMAN GUN

Nelson Evening Mail, 25 May 1916, Page 7

THE 17 INCH GERMAN GUN

Discussion is still proceeding on the report that the •Germans - have made and mounted g>uns afloat of 17m. calibre. There is, says the Naval and Military Record, no possibility of deciding the question either one way or the other, and the discussion may well continue without result, either until an action takes place in the North Sea at peace comes to solve that and other mysteries. The public always attach immense importance to i ships and giins. They cannot, of course, jbe ignored. We gained no slight moral, I if not material, advantage from the sucj cess with which the Admiralty outI manoeuvred the enemy in matters of i naval resign and armaments in the years | immediteiy preceding the war. It must have been a source of no little satisfaction to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe during the past 18 months to reflect on the pari, which he took in co-operating in the movement which eventually gave us so great an advantage in ships and guns over the The present Command-ed-in-Chief of the -Grand Fleet was naval assistant to the Controller of the Navy I from February, 1902, to August, 1303. He then spent 18 months in command of the cruiser Drake, and in February, 1905, the Dreadnought year, he returned to the Adniiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes. He did not go to sea again until August, 1907, and in October o'f the following year became ■Controller of the Navy, exercising an influence. on naval go 1 icy which it would ■be difficult to over-estimate. Sir John Jellicoe took up his .present appointment with ah intimate knowledge of all that has been done in ship design and armament-. Now, while he is in command of the Grand Fleet the story of the 17in German gun has obtained wide circulation. It is possible for the Germans, to have made a 17in gun, or an -even larger weapon. Whether they have thought it worth their while to do so is a matter upon which.no decided opinion can be expressed.