THE BREAKERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 17 January 1925, Page 7

THE BREAKERS

HOW A BATTLESHIP DISAPPEARS

A VIVID DESCRIPTION

A vivid descripti in of how a battleship is broken up is given by Peime in the Christian World.

“When M. Herriot, the French Premier, watched the naval review at Spithead from the same ship as Admiral Beatty, and remarked upon the might of the British Navy, the Admiral reminded him that seven of our battleships had been scrapped under the Washington Agreement,” says the writer, “and it was three of those ships that 1 saw in the breakers’ hands. Those ships cost £2,000,000 each about the beginning of the war. It- was easy to believe it when one saw uie armour plates of finest steel, lOin to 12in thick, and the teak that serves as a buffer between..the.-plate* and the inside ‘skin’ of the ship, pie teak is a foot thick, and-it-eosts new , £l7 a ton. If ife. £2,000,000 building | were put up, and it- depreciated at- the rate of £200,000 a year, everybody would be aghast, but here were a good £6,000,000 worth of material and workmanship melted away at that rate. Even apart from scrapping, war time experience liasi made ten-year-old battleships almost as j obsolete as Nelson's Victory. j ‘This* breaking up of battleships is aj highly expert business. The ships look as if no power short- of a torpedo, a mine, or a- well directed shot- from a 14-inch gun con!..! make any impression on them. But science has found ,ways of stripping the mighty monsters of their protective armour. I was shown heaps of neatly shaped two to live-ton blocks of steel ready for conveying by ship or rail to the purchasers. How are the blocks shaped and sized? I was shown the yard-long cylinders of acetylene gas. Three cylinders, each with its tube, are united to supply the incredibly fierce heat before which a section of steel armour is melted as butter, and carved into sizes and shapes at will. A five ton block looks very small. “Most beautiful work is taken out of the ships, and sold, if possible, intact. There were , boilers weighing 35 tons. The difficulty is to find railway cars that will carry them. Teak is the hardest and most intractable of timber/but orders for furniture made of the teak from particular ships are received and executed. A ship is bought/with everything on board at the time of the. sale. Among the contents are crockery, glass, cutlery, beautiful fittings, carpets, baths, and a hundred other .desirable things. The breakers gradually carve the ship away downwards from the turrets and endwards from bow to stern. The Vengeance is now shorn of half her bulk. Her 17i ton anchor lies near her: Her plates will possibly reappear in ploughs and railway engines. Out of her teak pulpits or church doors may be fashioned. It costs £7,000,000 now to build a first-class battleship.