VALUABLE DEFENCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18203, 26 September 1933, Page 5

VALUABLE DEFENCE

BRITISH AIR FORCE WARSHIPS REPULSED LONDON, Sept. 25. The Daily Telegraph's naval correspondent says that vnluablo lessons were learnt in tho North Sea war between a naval base defended only by aeroplanes, and a combined raid by ships and aeroplanes, this being the first manoeuvres by the navy in which the R.A.F. cooperated. When the attackers tried to bombard Elie, in the Firth of Forth, the Warspito was hit by six aerial torpedoes and the Malaya by one, tho Renown being the only capital ship escaping aerial torpedoes. The attacking planes dived steeply from several thousand feet and flattened out only when 20ft. from the water in order to discharge their missiles. Forty-eight bombs were also dropped upon the very vulnerable and exposed landing decks of the aircraft carriers Furious and Courageous.

Though the conditions were abnormally favorable to the defenders, the attack showed the deadliness of aircraft against warships. Other expert witnesses at the manoeuvres state that the defending Air Force is convinced that, the whole of the attacking ships ought to be at the bottom of the sea, and consider that the navy s seaplanes could not upset an attack upon the fleet.

It is announced that the naval men s attitude will be that had the ships really come to shell the coast of Scotland they would come at night instead of in the daytime, attacking at dawn, and steaming away in a zigzag course the. instant the attack was over. Tho manoeuvres did not allow of these precautions.