NAVAL ACTIVITIES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144855, 6 December 1915, Page 7

NAVAL ACTIVITIES.

SO3IE BRITISH SUCCESSES. From time to time the cables apprise us of the destruction or capture by the enemy of British trawlers or traders pursuing their callings in the North Sea, but, somehow or other, we rarely hear of reprisals effected hy our own ships of war. Our readers will probably bo surprised to learn, on no loss an authority than the London Gazette, that between October 14 and 20, less than a week, no fewer than 24 German steam trawlers, employed in fishing, mine-laying, or scouting, were captured by British patrol shins and taken into port, 22 into Grimsby and two into Newcastle. Five other vessels of neutral ownership were also arrested and their cargos detained. The activities of our submarines and patrols off the Scandinavian coasts appear to have almost paralysed the trade upon which Germany has for some time past been mainly dependent, and a reign of, terror has been established in the Baltic, whore British submarines have lately been playing havoc with enemy craft. On October 13 the master of a Gorman steamer reported that ho had witnessed the sinking of three other vessels by a British submarine, and on the loth a fight took place off the Danish island of Moon between one of our submorgiblcs and a Gorman cruiser and throe torpedo boats, resulting in the sinking of one of tiro latter and the flight of the rest. A telegram from Luloa (Gulf of Bothnia, Sweden) stated that of 27 Gorman steamers duo at that port only nine had arrived, and four of these had received orders to stay where they wore until further notified. On October 1G the Gorman steam ferry from Trelloborg, running with lights out, cut in two a large German torpedo boat, only five being saved out of a crew of 45. On the same date Potrograd reported that British submarines operating in the Baltic had sunk five Gorman transports and compelled another to run ashore.