NEW WARSHIP NAMES

Southland Times, Issue 20488, 16 May 1928, Page 3

NEW WARSHIP NAMES

EXETER AND CODRINGTON,

SIX NEW SUBMARINES.

The Admiralty has announced the names of the vessels of the 1927-1928 naval programme. The one cruiser which is to be built at Devonport has been given a WestCountry name, Exeter. In commemoration of the recent centenary of the battle of Navarino, the name of Codrington has been selected for the flotilla leader, after Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, who commanded the Allied Fleet against the Turco-Egyptian forces. This appears to be the first time that his name has been conferred on a British man-of-war.

The eight destroyers, following the precedent set with the Amazon and Ambuscade of the 1924 programme, take names beginning with the initial “A” as follows: Acasta, Achates, Aghqron, Active, Antelope, Antony, Ardent and Arrow. Some of these are old destroyer names; others have been borne by gunboats or light cruisers, with the sole exception of Antony, of which the only record is of a small ship of Tudor times.

The six submarines in the programme will form a new “P”. class, the names chosen being Parthian, Perseus, Poseidon, Proteus, Python, and Phoenix. They form the second of the four groups of six submarines provided in the five-year schedule adopted by Parliament in July, 1925. The first group, ordered in November, 1926 will bear the names of Osiris, Oswald, Otus, Olympus Orpheus and Odin. None of them is yet launched. Previously one vessel of the “O” type had been built under the 1923-24 programme, the Oberon. This vessel was completed in 1927, and is now serving in the Fifth Flotilla, Portsmouth. Two other “O” class boats were ordered in 1925 by the Australian Government, Oxley and Otway, and are now on their way to Sydney to join the Commonwealth Fleet, a journey of 12,692 miles.