LIFE IN THE NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 11

LIFE IN THE NAVY.

THE SYSTEM OF SERVICE.

WORLD-WIDE EXPERIENCE. A TWENTY-YEAR CAREER. ROMANCE OF THE SEVEN SEAS. The departure of British bluejackets for Homo at the end of a commission is a familiar event in most of the ports of the Empire, but Auckland has hardly become accustomed to it. The city is inclined to regard the naval men within her gates as citizen hy adoption, seeing that their ships remain upon the station or in tho New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy. When the New> Zealand ships are manned by New Zcalandors, wo will have ships' companies which are at home, but until then, for tho most part, the sailors which undemonstrative .Auckland holds in high regard, aro men who havo "gone abroad" for a definite term. The term of service in the New Zealand Division, which comprises 11.M.5. Dunedin, H.M.S. Philomel, and 11.M.5. Piomede, when sho arrives, is three years, including tho passage out and back again, and six weeks' leave at the end of it. On the ships of tho Imperial Navy in these waters —H.M.S. Veronica and H.M.S. Laburnum—the term is two to two and a-half years. These conditions apply generally on all foreign stations from the China Sea to tho North Atlantic, from tho Persian Gulf to the Cape of Good Hope. Officers and men go Home at tho end of the commission unless they transfer to tho new commission, and whether the ships go Home or not. No Discharge Before Due Date. Should a man's period of service be completed on a foreign station ho may take his discharge there, and some cases have occurred of such men taking their discharge in New Zealand, but unless his term of service so expires he cannot elect to resign. Ono man with only five months to serve had to go with the Homeward-bound draft on Thursday. Ho married before ho left, and will return when he has discharged his naval obligations. In this far-distant outpost of the Empire it is not easy to realise what a wonderfully wide experience the older men of the service possess and what a knowledge tjfiey have of tho world. "I havo just returned from Iceland and will be sailing for German ports next week," so runs a letter received recently from a petty officer who spent throe years on this station, during which he had a number of voyages in the Pacific, visiting islands well out of the beaten track, But in his 20 years of service he has seen much more than Iceland, the ports of the North Sea station and tho 1 islands of the South Seas. A Landing Party in China. The North Sea and Continental ports were familiar to him before he was 18 years of age. Then he went to the China station, and there served two commissions. Ho was on gun-boats in what the Navy refers to as "the River." He had dealings with pirates, 3nd at Nankin or some such place was engaged in a piece of naval bluff that usually "comes off." There was civil war—a local war no doubt. A party of missionaries living two or three miles from the landing was menaced, and it became the duty of the part of the Navy in the vicinity, a gunboat carrying 80 men, to secure its safety. A landing party was ordered. In front marched a lieutenant with his sword drawn; behind him came 20 men with the 20 rifles the ship carried, and then another 20 or so with cutlasses. The streets of the city were crowded with soldiers and military ruffiao6, and the naval party could have been wiped out without causing a stir, but prestige went with them. Trie seething crowd opened up as the naval men advanced and _as they returned with the missionaries. "The Chinese have a wholesome respect for the Navy," was his comment. One will pass over happy days in Japan where bluejackets would spend their shore leave dressed in gorgeous kimonas and have rickshaw trjps in pleasant cherry blossom company and proceed to the North Atlantic Station, where our friend found life rigorous in. the winters except when a southern journey was made to the West Indies. The Persian Gulf. Another commission took him to the Persian Gulf, where it was the duty of the navy to stop gun-running. A pinnace commanded by a midshipman would go away from the ship for a couple of days during which all dhows would be investigated. One of them which was strongly suspected of carrying arms appeared to bo as innocent as an Auckland scow. But the suspicions led to her being beached and when the tide dropped several cases of rifles were found screwed on to the outside of the hull. Then came delightful duty in the Mediterranean, of which memories seem to centre in "festas" in Portugal and bull fights in Spain, and merry moments at Marseilles. The war brought the sailor post haste to the Dardanelles in a destroyer and New Zealanders may remember the black, swift boat that helped to patrol the Peninsula. But it was not always off the military position. There were sudden dashes into such ports as Smyrna, and along the Turkish shores the destroyer sometimes had tho task of landing a party of Greek brigands commanded bv a temporary naval officer who, in civil 'life, was a sedate professor of dead languages in a great university. Their purpose was raiding for fattle._ And one dark night the destroyer crept into a place where there was a Greek monastery and tlie officer who landed Rave instructions for the place to be shelled if he did not return in an hour.. Hunting Submarines. Followed service in a little craft which sought for submarines and which carried enough T.N.T. in its "necklace" of depth charges to blow it to fragments., Our sailor was in Jaffd frequently during the war in Palestine and once was one of a party of sailors taken inland for a jaunt on Australian horses. _ The Lighthorsemen who were responsible for the party felt much worse than a hen with ducklings. No one was killed, but the cactus hedges found a number. Then there was the commission on the New Zealand station, and now, this man who is only 36 years of age is dashing from Iceland to Germany, and appears to imagine that a good finish to his service would be a year on a fast destroyer in the Bed Sea, where apparently slave trading to Abyssinia is not completely dead. That in outline is the life of one of the sailors known to many Auckland people. Perhaps he does not see the romance as civilians see it, hut where is the life that offers so much variety ? No wonder our sailor friends are "a little different."