Many Cruisers Need Repairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 11

Many Cruisers Need Repairs

WAR-TIME SHIPS

MID-WAY OF LIFE

Why is it necessary for the two New Zealand cruisers to go to England—the Diomede in 1930 and the Dunedin in 1931—for refits and repairs that will take each ship away for about a year, is explained by G. H. Hurford in

the Portsmouth “Naval Chronicle.” They are mid-way through their effective official “life” of 20 years, he explains, and they require large sums of money to be spent on them if they are to be maintained in an efficient sea-going condition. A heavy expenditure must be entailed for the repair of cruisers. At the present time Chatham Dockyard, which is principally concerned in this class of work, has no fewer than seven cruisers paid off and in various stages of repair. Portsmouth also has one, the Delhi. How does it come about that so large a proportion of the reduced cruiser strength of the British Navy is out of commission at this time ?

The vessels in question were completed 10 years or more ago, the Calypso and Curlew in 1917; the Carlisle, Coventry, Curacoa and Dragon in 191 S; and the Delhi and Hawkins in 1919. It is one of the disadvantages of building ships in large batches, as was done under the stress of war, that they grow obsolete together, and this is what is happening to the cruisers referred to. A great contrast is apparent between the post-war and pre-war fleets in regard to the distribution of cruisers. Although the number of ships maintained in full commission up to 1914 was greater than it is now, it constituted only a part of the whole. The remainder of the ships were in various stages of reserve, according to the degree of likelihood of their being required for war. Some had nucleus crews of three-fifths full complement, some reduced nucleus crews, some were in special reserve with skeleton crews, and last of all there were the “Motherbankers” in charge of caretakers. No Reserve Now Today there is no reserve of cruisers to speak of. YVhen the needs of the fleets and foreign stations have been met, and the vessels due for lengthy overhaul have been taken in hand, and when provision has been made for trooping voyages and for two ships to be attached to the signal and gunnery schools, there is no margin for the ordinary reserve. At the present moment, the Reserve Fleet at. Portsmouth has but one cruiser effective, the Constance, flagship of the ViceAdmiral Commanding. The Nore Reserve has only one, the Birmingham, which is among the oldest ships in the Service. . The Reserve Fleet, Devonport, has none, and an indication of the straits to which the authorities are put may be gained from the fact that the Pegasus, an obsolete aircraftcarrier on the sale list, has been brought back temporarily as the ship of the senior officer.

The situation is admittedly rendered more acute just now by the dispatch of three cruisers, the Carysfort, Cleopatra and Dartmouth, on trooping voyages to China. But this is an essential part of Naval routine, and there must always be ships available for it. A former First Lord .once claimed that this system of sending relief crews oversea by man-o’-war instead of by merchant vessel was a development of Naval strength, as the ship constituted temporary additions to the stations through which they passed. But it is no great addition in the case of a ship like the Dartmouth, the oldest cruiser of the Navy. What Might Have Been

Memories are short, and probably few people remember the programme which was framed in the autumn of 1923 with the dual object of anticipating cruiser replacements and relieving unemployment in the great shipbuilding centres. Had that been carried out, the cruiser situation today would be altogether different. Mr. Amery, then First Lord, in outlining the policy in the House of Commons, said that during the next ten years we should have to lay down a total of 52 cruisers, or an average of five a year; but there would be a heavy drop in the six years up to 1929, and “to prevent a serious deficiency arising” in that and subsequent years we ought, he added, to lay down as many above that average as we reasonably could. The Government decided upon eight cruisers for 1924, a total which the Labour Government reduced to five, although these were put in hand without delay, and the ships, of the Kent class, are now in service in China. Supposing eight cruisers, as contemplated in the Amery programme, had been authorised and begun promptly in the years 1924, 1925 and 1926 they would now have been completed or nearly ready. Those 24 cruisers would have enabled the Admiralty to withdraw all the “D” and “C” class cruisers from the fully commissioned fleets of squadrons. Five would have gone to China* five to the YVest Indies, eight to the Mediterranean, four to the Atlantic, and two to the Cape. YVith the Hawkins and Enterprise classes already in service, the “D” and “C” classes could have been placed in reserve, which is their natural status nowadays, for they were designed more particularly for North Sea work and are not the most suitable types by a long way for service in the outer oceans.

In the absence of the ships contemplated in 1923, partly because the programmes have been reduced, and partly because such ships as have been authorised have been much delayed and built at a slow rate, the Admiralty are obliged to make the most of such vessels as they have. Hence the importance of giving the cruisers now in the dockyards a thorough refit halfway through their normal life. If such vessels had come to be regarded definitely as reserve ships the need to bring them up-to-date would not be so urgent, and the heavy expense might either have been spared or spread over a longer period.