THE NEW NAVAL ERA

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1934, Page 6

THE NEW NAVAL ERA

“END OF BATTLESHIPS” SUBMARINE DEFEATS THEM. FORCED OFF THE SEAS. The English, as a nation, are proverbially apathetic in matters pertaining to the national defence, says an article by Admiral Sir Victor Stanley published in the Daily Mail. The general attitude to the question seems to be that it is a tiresome one, involving an unnecessarily large expenditure of public money, and that it can, anyhow, be left safely in the hands of the experts, controlled, of course, in the interests of economy, by politicians. At the present time there seems to be a very genuine and praiseworthy effort on the part of thinking people to rouse the nation to an appreciation of the true state of affairs, and to put our house in order while there is yet an opportunity.

I will not attempt to go into the question of general disarmament. The idea is Utopian; we have led the way, but no one has followed. To put it plainly, disarmament will not work. Is not the wiser course now to face that fact and to take stock forthwith of the armed forces of our country?. With this in view, let us begin with the most expensive item by far among our weapons of war, the battleship. I am inclined to think that we must look on these vast ships as rapidly passing out of date, just as those old “wooden walls” of a century or more ago have passed. They fought on the water; there were no powerful engines of war beneath the surface and above it such as constitute the enemies of the battleship of to-day. Let us cast our minds back nearly twenty years to a time when the Air Force was only in its infancy and when submarines were comparatively small, limited in their range of action, and as yet untried in war. On war becoming practically a certainty, the Grand Fleet, as it was subsequently named, was fortunately mobilised, and forthwith, to use the somewhat poetical phrase of that time, vanished into the northern mists, or in other words, proceeded to the farthest harbour in the British Isles, where, surrounded by flotillas of destroyers for its protection, it—as it were—dug itself in. I am not questioning the wisdom of that step. On the contrary, it was the only thing to do. Let me digress for a moment to say that not one word of reflection is meant here on the high officers of the Navy serving either with the Fleet or at the Admiralty. I was in command of a battleship in the Grand Fleet for nearly three years and had the honour of serving under both Lord Jellicoe and Lord Beatty. There was nothing in the world that they desired so much as to get at the enemy, a feeling shared by every officer and man who had the honour of serving in His Majesty’s Navy at that time.

Scapa Flow, being then entirely unprotected, was hastily—l had almost said feverishly—put into a state of defence; certain entrances were blocked up, and every possible step was taken to make the Fleet secure against submarine attack. Fortunately, almost the best defences were natural ones, namely, the fierce currents and swirling waters of the Pentland Firth. Such was the menace of the submarine even in those days—and we may rest assured that the submarine has come to stay. However much we may like to see its total abolition, there are certain nations that will never even consider the question. It was the submarine which not long after almost brought this country to its knees, although those thirty or so battleships of the Grand Fleet were still intact. That was nearly twenty years ago; and now a great new danger has arisen, that of attack from the air. Can it be said that any of our harbours can r>« made invulnerable now?

We have in the Nelson and the Rodney unquestionably the two most powerful vessels in the world, built at a cost of about 15 millions between them—but it is difficult to see what part they are going to play should we unhappily find ourselves again at war. , Could we send a fleet to the shores of any enemy nation, and what would it do if it got there?

Every mile it went would take it further away from its base, a vital necessity to any fleet, and nearer to a hornet’s nest of mines, submarines, and aircraft.

From the day that the submarine materialised as a factor to be dealt with in naval warfare the value of the battleship as an offensive weapon began to decline.

I hope it will not be thought for one moment that I am advocating any reduction in the Navy—far from it—or that I am attempting to say that any one force of the three, the Navy, the Army, or the Air Force, should be predominant. Each is complementary to the others. The safeguarding of our trade routes is a vital necessity to this country, and for that duty we want an almost unlimited number of powerful and fast cruisers. I do not think it has ever been suggested that battleships could be used for this purpose. Let us not, therefore, continue to spend vast sums of money in the building and upkeep of battleships in the future as we have done in the past, when there is such pressing need for augmenting the other more useful branches of the Navy. I have no doubt that a number of my brother officers, past and present, in the service to which I had the honour to belong for 45 years will not be in agreement with me, but to them, or to any would-be supporter of the battleship, I would put this simple question: “What role would you assign to a battle fleet if we should find ourselves engaged in another war?”