ANOTHER MYSTERY SHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17139, 19 April 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

ANOTHER MYSTERY SHIP.

SUPER-ARMED SUBMARINE.

CARRIED A 12-INCH GUN.

Among the navy's many mystery ships built during the war there is one of which hitherto, I believe, there has boen no whisper outside naval circles, and this despite the fact that censorship ceased two months ago, writes the naval correspondent of a London paper. I came across her quite by accident. I •was not meant to see her, but I was proceeding on my " lawful occasions" into Haslar Creek, in Portsmouth harbour, one day when I saw alongside the wharf at Fort Blockhouse the mj>st incredible ship that ever happened outside a nightmare. It was Ml.

It looked like a submarine, and roy ">• stinct told me that it was a submarine because it was lying alongside the submarine depot. What was a submarine doing carrying a 12-inch gun? The long barrel was unmistakable, the massive turret in the centre of the ship was equally convincing. As a matter of fact, Ml and the other ships of the M class were built to carry 12-inch guns. When it is remembered that the biggest gun carried by any of the German submarines was a 6-inch nieco it will be seen that the M <sla« had the Germans beaten to a frazzle. The weight of a 6-inch gun is five tons; the weight of a 12-inch gun is fifty tons. The weight of a 6-inch shell is lOOlbs; the weight of a 12-inch shell is 8501bs.

Ml was the cause of one amusing scare during the war. She slipped out carefully from Portsmouth dockyard in the early dawn of a summer morning soon after she was completed to carry out gun trials. She went a long way out into the Channel, and opened fire. The terrific reverberation of her big gun was something that had not been heard in that neighbourhood for many months. The rumour promptly ran round that German battle-cruisers were bombarding the Isle of Wight! The first captain of Ml was Commander Max K. Horton, who sprang into fame at the beginning of the war when in E9 he torpedoed the Hela in the Bight of Heligoland, besides carrying out a series of daring reconnaissances in those dangerous waters.