NAVY AT WORK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21217, 24 December 1930, Page 10

NAVY AT WORK.

PREMIERS UNDER TORPEDO FIRE A DAY WITH THE FLEET. (From Oub o ( wn Coerespondent.) LONDON, November 6. Six hours spent with the Atlantic -bleet in the Channel on Saturday probably gave Dominion statesmen and Inman princes a better understanding of' Britain s part in Imperial defence fban a, great deaf, of talk round the conference table. Some 300 privileged guests had to he early astir, for the special train had to get as far. as Portland. The party left at 7.30, and breakfast was served on the train. We arrived af Portland dockyard, in the shelter of the famous Portland Bill, at J 1 o’clock, and were taken in the sloop Snapdragon to H.M.S. Nelson.

In London the weather conditions were not promising, hut when the Nelson had got out into the Channel the visibility was satisfactory, and the sea was, just stirred by a slight breeze. The day was cold, and. before the programme was completed there were some heavy show-, ers of rain. But they soon passed over. Nelson swept out from Portland into a minefield. She was fitted with a paravane, which cut through the wires of the mines and brought them to tho surface. Then two submarines suddenly came up from the depth to remind the premiers of other perils of war. These were theoretically beaten off by the machine gun fire. Next, out of the mist loomed a flotilla of destroyers. Nelson moved into the battle line. Having done so, H.ht.S, Courageous, the aircraft carrier, launched some 30 aeroplanes into the clouds. They swept down on battleships and cruisers like a nightmare. The marines with their anti-aircraft guns blazed away at them. Four of the planes in the bad light had to make forced landings on the cliffs above Portland, but though two of them were damaged there were no personal injuries. TOEPEDOES AND DEPTH CHARGES. There was an anxious moment when one plane came down in the water instead of landing on Courageous—about a mile astern of H.M.S. Nelson. Almost on the crash a destroyer’s bow wave heightened, and she was on the spot and a boat, lowered while some of the Nelson’s guests were counting seconds. It was not long before the news came that the pilot and observer were safe, and that the sea had claimed tho machine. Submarines fired torpedoes as Nelson passed, and scored six hits on our chip, who deliberately held her course,. The “ fish,” as the sailors call thpm, were dummies with collapsible heads. Imagination was helped, however, by the actual explosion of depth-charges dropped by destroyers to show how submarines are attacked beneath the surface. The 35,000 tons of steel which form the Nelson’s hull shuddered at the explosion about a mile away, where a mountain of boiling water surged upwards from the sea. STEERED BY WIRELESS. The concentration firing intended for long range at a target be von d the -horizon had to take place at a mere three or four miles, where this particular form of gunnery is least efficacious. ,Vfvid flashes of gunfire rippled down the battle line. The target ship Centurion was controlled by wireless by her attendant destroyer Shikari. Then came a touch of realism, a ship under heavy gunfire with the shell splashes leaping out of the water all round her, and occasional showers of sparks when the practice projectiles got home, ’The setting was magnificent in the sunset light. It was difficult to realise that there was not a man on board the Centurion as she turned and twisted, that not a man had been on board her for three or four hours. Even the smoke screen with which she presently shrouded herself was touched off by wireless. It was a thrilling day, and the Dominion visitors will not soon forget their experiences with the Atlantic fleet. , All the members of tho New Zealand delegates, including the ladies, took part m the trip, and express their amazement at the marvellous spectacle provided. The work of the submarines gave them a better understanding of bow they worked in the war, and the treachery of which they could be capable As Mrs Forbes remarked: We saw pictures during the war, but I don’t think we realised how submarines reallv operated.” J