CABLE-LAYING IN WAR-TIME.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 2789, 28 May 1921, Page 7

CABLE-LAYING IN WAR-TIME.

GERMAN RAID ON FANNING ISLAND. At a meeting of the P.O. Telephone and Telegraph Society in London, Mr A. Avery, Superintendent of the Imperial Cable Services, had some stories to toll of war-time cable-lay-ing. An attempt was made, he said, to open direct communication, with Potrograd without the knowledge of

the Germans. The cable was. laid by the cable-ship Colonia, between Peterhead, oil the Aberdeenshire coast, and Alexandrovsk, o lithe shore of an inlet of the White Sea, onj. the Kola Peninsula. In an endeavour to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy the ship went cruising for three months in quite a different direction from that iri which it was intended that her cable laying work should be t arried out, “but lid jspitej of all manoeuvring and secrecy,” said Mr Avery, “on tlie very next morning following the completion of the cabled;)ying the fact was mentioned .in the Cologne Gazette.” The route taken by the “All Rod” route was from London to Halifax, by direct working, through automatic repeaters at Penza nee and Fay a!, in mid-Atlantic; Halifax to Ramficld, ii 4 Vawcouvor, by Wheatstone duplex through eight automatic repo a iters, being direct working across. Canada : thence to Fanning Island. From Ramficld to Fan mil lg Island wins the longest single stretch of ocean cable in the world. The next step was from Fanning to Suva, and then the route ay as via Norfolk Island to Auckland, and thence to Sydney, with an automate route from Norfolk to Southport, near Brisbane. Fanning Island was one of the first cable points to be attacked by the German fleet. One day near the outbreak of the war a German cruiser, accompanied l»y a collier, landed a

party, which smashed everything at the cable station). They overhauled everything, and discovered the place of concealment- of the duplicate plant, which was destroyed. The officer in charge of the station, however, shenved resource. Next morning, by means «f a pick-axe. which ho used a.s a gra.pnal, lie picked up the end of the broken cable. Improvising a wooden raft, which he anchored, lie tautened to .it the broken cable ends and made a thorough connection wid* a- pbc© of .covor«,d copper. He then constructed a. primitive telegraph sc , and got into eommunie;>b*on. witu Suva'md made known his phgld.