NAVAL EXERCISES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23436, 26 February 1938, Page 19

NAVAL EXERCISES

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND SHIPS PROTECTION OF TRADE ROUTES REALISTIC ENEMY “RAIDS” (From Oub Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Feb. 18. Units of the Australian and New Zealand naval squadrons for the last week have been conducting important joint manoeuvres /off the New South Wales and Victorian coast. The operations, planned oh an unusually large scale with 10 units, have had for their principal object the protection of commercial shipping on a particular route. Opportunities to co-operate with the New Zealand cruisers do not present themselves frequently to the Australian command, and accordingly full advantage was taken of this one. Not a moment that could be put to practical use was lost. The trade protection exercises involved 43 hours of continuous steaming and manoeuvring. They may have an important bearing on plans for the defence of Australia. They showed that interstate and oversea shipping is '■mlnerable to attack by raiding cruisers and armed merchantmen; that existing naval forces are capable of sinking a large proportion of a raiding squadron of the strength that might be expected in Australian waters in wartime; that an armed merchant cruiser may be destroyed by aerial bombing: and that there is urgent need for efficiency in visual signalling by the personnel of Australian coastal trading vessels. Exercises under service conditions were conducted for three days before the main operation was begun. Sub-calibre and full-calibre firings and torpedo practice were conducted by both day and night. Amphibian planes co-operated in the preliminary and main exercises, and in the latter squadrons of the Royal Air Force from Victoria and New South Wales took part. For the first time, British merchantmen travelling between Melbourne and Sydney played parts in this realistic war game. . All freighters and liners flying the British flag between the two ports became liable to attack by raiders of the “ Blue ” fleet, comprising the Achilles and Leander, of the New Zealand squadron, and the Australia destroyers, Vendetta and Waterhen, all under the command of Rear-admiral Drummond. The “Red” defending fleet, comprising the Australian ships Canberra, Australia, Sydney and Stuart, commanded by Rear-admiral LanePoole, and Air Force units sought to irtercent and destroy the» raiders. The situation presented by the exercises was a particular phase of sea trade protection, one of Australia’s most vital problems, in the event of major hostilities. It was visualised that the raid came like a bolt from the blue, in an undeclared war.

Although the exercises were necessarily attended with a degree of artificiality, particularly because no delay or inconvenience was permitted in the commercial activities of freighters and liners, they were extremely realistic, covering an area of 20,000 square miles between Melbourne and Sydney and adjacent waters. The test of trade route protection was not a, conventional war game organised merely for fleet practice. It represented a phase of considered policy, as laid down by the highest naval authorities in the Empire, and was conducted with a background of realism and probability.

The “ Red ” fleet had to wait for distress signals from an attacked ship, and then had to discover an enemy who, after a raid, could disappear under cover of darkness and be'3oo miles or more away by dawn.

The exercises were closely watched by the British Admiralty. An elaborate record of every shot and major exercise was plotted on huge charts. These, with detailed reports, will be transmitted to the Navy Office in Melbourne, thence to the Admiralty, and finally to all naval stations under the British flag-