ARMY MOTOR VEHICLES ON A JOURNEY ACROSS DESERT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 376, 18 March 1932, Page 6

ARMY MOTOR VEHICLES ON A JOURNEY ACROSS DESERT .

A London Letter

Many Theories of Submarine Disaster; Harley Street Hit by Hard Times.

(Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, February 4

Reports reaching the War Office indicate that good progress is being made by the convoy of army motor vehicles which has been sent on a 5500-mile journey through Egypt and the deserts of the Southern Sudan for the purpose of testing the efficiency of mechanical transport under the most exacting conditions of travel and climate.

'J'HE EXPERIMENTS IN EGYPT were started last winter, and useful results have been obtained. The present test is being made with four selected vehicles of ordinary commercial types adapted for military purposes, and the convoy is travelling by way of Wadi Haifa to Khartum. South of Khartum, it will strike westward through the desert to El Obeid and beyond, afterwards bearing south-east along the frontier of the Belgian Congo, through the Sudd country to Juba, not far from the border of Uganda. On the return journey the expedition will travel for a long distance beside the White Nile. Then it will make north-east for Port Sudan and continue towards Cairo along the shore of the Red Sea. No Roads. On the greater part of the route to be taken there will be no roads of the sort to which the English motorist is accustomed. Most of it will be very rough g >ing. The sand encountered will be soft and hard in turn, and there will be long stretches of country strewn with stones and boulders. If will also be necessary to cross a good many water courses. It will be discovered how soon motor vehicles can be got into working order after passing through a severe sandstorm. Much will be learned, too, regarding the cooling of engines in a tropical climate and the behaviour of tyres in soft sand. The results of these War Office experiments are communicated to the motor industry, and this co-operation is mutually helpful. The military authorities are confident that with such adaptations of design as experience dictates, British cars can meet service needs in any part of the world with complete efficiency. The Lost Submarine. Many theories are being advanced to account for the foundering off Portland of the British submarine M2, with the loss of sixty lives. Submarine disasters, with few exceptions, are caused by ramming, either when the vessel is on the surface or submerged, and, as there is no evidence that M2 was rammed, it is supposed by some experts that when she dived one of her hatches was open. As a seaplane carrier, M2 had a hangar on the upper deck, the hangar having a door in direct communication with the sea when submerged and another giv< ing access to the boat. Through these hangar doors or through one of the three hatches in the hull, the water must have poured in. If all had been closed the submarine below water would have been as snug and well secured as any vessel above. Assuming that a hatch was open, the compartment would fill at once and, even though the water-tight doors which divide the vessel were closed, the bulkheads of this older submarine would not withstand the pressure of water at any depth. The bulkheads of the Poseidon and all our later

submarines are designed for pressure. If the bulkheads w’ent, it would explain the fact that so far as is known no tise was made of the Davis escape apparatus. Effective as it may be, and was when the Poseidon sank, this apparatus demands an isolated compartment. Other Theories. In the absence of ramming, a possible alternative to the disaster described is submergence to a depth at which the hull would collapse, Off Portland, the depth is nowhere great enough, for M2 could certainly withstand a pressure of 150 to 200 feet. A third theory is based on the fact that the captain of the M2 had apparently signalled before the accident to the submarine parent ship Titania that difficulty was being experienced by the M2 in surfacing and diving properly. It appears possible that the officers of the submarine, in trying to rectify this fault, ordered alterations in the “ trim ” of the boat. Then, when everything was thought ready, the command ** Take her down! ” may have been given—upon which the boat may have taken an unexpected run (or tilt) either forward or aft, in consequence of the new “ trim ” and all control of her may have been lost. In such a case, with the boat at an angle, the acid would run out of all the batteries and all hands would be gassed. Hard Times in Harley Street. There are more houses to let in Harley Street than there have ever been before. This is the outward sign of the extent to which the trade depression has hit the medical profession—and particularly the specialists. Dr Alfred Cox, medical secretary of the British Medical Association, has stated that the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, which deals with acute cases of distress among medical men, is having considerably more demands made on it than usual. “ Many general practitioners have had to cut down their expenses,” he said, “ and in some areas where there is a lot of unemployment, doctors are being very seriously affected. Specialists are not being consulted to anything like the extent to which they were. People are deciding to rely on thejr own doctor’s opinion rather than call in ]a specialist, with the result that the specialists have lost a lot of their work. Several specialists who formerly occupied large houses in Harley Street or Portland Place have moved to less expensive dwellings, and are retaining only their consulting rooms. It is not only that people are “ too poor to be ill.” The doctors say that even the patients they have treated seem increasingly disinclined to pay their bills. For, it is declared, doctors are always the last people to have their accounts settled—even the income tax authorities are paid first!