SWEEPING FOR MINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17242, 19 August 1919, Page 7

SWEEPING FOR MINES.

SHIPS AND THEIR MEN. SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. TALES OF GALLIPOLI DAYS. H.M. sloops Mallow, Marguerite and Geranium, now resting in port after sweeping for mines in near and distant seas, may owe their being to the Great War but in cut and colour and 'in that something which gives them individuality and suggests latent but ever-ready force, they are true children of the Royal Navy. And the men who man them are the same Jack Tars whom the nation loves so well. "A British sailor belongs to a type which is separate and distinct, and he would look just the same British sailor in a Nile felucca, an Arab dhow or a Chinese junk. Nelson never dreamed of mine-sweepers equipped with balloons, but here they are. Were he to return to life the vessels would amaze him, but one fancies he would not mistake the sailor. It is good to talk with these men of the " sweepers." It restores perspective and makes one feel extremely humble, for ( they are of the service which always serves, which always does its job, so hazardous in war, but which leaves others to do the shouting. Yesterday on the two vessels at the Hobson Wharf begrimed men were hammering at queer-looking bars and rods. They were not worrying about the fact that others ■were on leave—" leaf" they call it— quarrelling with the necessity for overhauling the ship, but were simply doing their job in good heart. What a lesson it is for these days! Sometimes a visitor asked questions and sometimes heard many strange things. The sailormen did not grin behind their hands when someone asked where the nets were and if they were made of wire or chain. "We don't use nets," replied a pettv officer. 'We only use a wire rope—two loops behind the three ships pulled at the end of wooden kites we tow The rope is supposed to catch the mine-moor ings breaks 'em, and then the mines float. "0-o-oh!" remarked the visitor, in dubious tones. "What happens then?" "Shoot the mines!" replied the sailor "I , su PP°se you go a long, way off for that.' ' said the visitor. "About 150 yards," was the reply. "But is that safe?" asked the landsman. "Oh, yes!" said the sailor. "'Course we sometimes get a sprinkle of splinters on the ship, but no one is supposed to be on deck." "But what if the ship ran into a mine!" said someone in the little circle which had gathered. "In that case some of the ship up and some of it would go down," said the sailor, .with a grin which implied patience as well as humour. In the crews of these sloops are many men who have played a part in some of the great deeds of the war. 'A returned soldier who was on Gallipoli found a sailor who had been on a destroyer which patrolled off the coast of Anzac during those great days, and together they . "swapped yarns" about deeds of war in which the destroyers co-operated with the land forces. They told stories of Turkish gun's marked by coldhials and destroyed by naval guns, and of the "evening hate" when the destroyers bid good-night to the Turks in the Redoubt. The sailor told yarns which the soldiers' ashore had not heard. For instance, he recalled the Greek sailing craft which sometimes' came down the Sea, and said that some of them had been found full of contraband. One of these vessels had a cargo of 2000 gallons of petrol covered with oranges. The petrol, he considered, was intended for enemy submarines. He stated that the submarine which torpedoed H.M.S. Triumph, off Anzac, showed her periscope a number of times while she was getting away, and i't was fired at by several of the destroyers. If depth charges had then been in existence he was confident they would have got the submarine. The New Zealander recalled how he had once seen two sweepers close in, and had observed smoke rising from the waiter after a destroyer had rushed to the scene. "It might havp been the end of the submarine," said the sailor, " but of course sometimes trawlers pulled together •to yarn, and a destroyer would come oult to tell them to keep busy." . Tho bluejacket did not think much of the raider Wolf as a mine-layer. He wanted to know where she had obtained sufficient mines to lay all she was supposed to have left. In any case he seemed quite sure she had dropped the mines in a tremendous hurry, and in a most haphazard manner. He was not concerned about the fact of her having laid them, but about the slovenly manner she had done the job.