SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

New Zealand Tablet, 12 August 1915, Page 17

SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR

"■■■\:r GENERAL. . France is to have a new war medal,. a cross with the inscription ' 1914-15,' suspended by a green ribbon with a red border. Shrapnel shells are thin cases of tough steel containing a large number of bullets in the British artillery 263 and in the French and German 300. The Italian soldier undergoes a more severe training in some respects than any friend or enemy in the armies of Europe. His day begins at 4.30 a.m., and drill and routine continue, with a two-hours' break of ' compulsory repose,' until 5 p.m. After that he has four hours' freedom, but must be back in barracks by 9 o'clock, or 8.30 in winter, and is supposed to he abed when, half an hour later, the bugles - sound the ' silenzin.' He is extremely well cared for by theauthorities, but long marches are reckoned among the essentials of his training, and some regiments can cover sixty miles at five miles an hour, and consider it nothing remarkable. 'Captain C. E. de la Pasture, Scots Guards, now unofficially reported killed, though many months ago he was reported missing (says the Catholic Times), was the. eldest sou of Gerard Gustavus Ducarel, Count and Marquis de la Pasture of the Kingdom of France, by his second wife Georgina, daughter of Mr. Robert, Loughnan. a judge in the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Downside and joined the Scots Guards in 1900, and became A.D.C., 1906-10, to Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker, Governor of Gibraltar He married, in 1911, Agatha, daughter of Alexander Moslev, C.M.G. Rev. Father d. J. Prendergast, writes as follow from St. Mark's Church, Choubrah, Cairo, to Mrs. O'Donnell, Th..rnbury, with reference to the death of her son. Private Denis O'Donneli : Dear Mrs. O'Donnell, — No doubt, e'er now, you must have learned of the death of you dear and deeply regretted Denis, of the N.Z. Expeditionary Forces. 1 offer von all my sympathy, and as a priest 1 thought it my duty to write and give you some details of his truly Christian death. I attended him during his illness—-that is, I visited him at least every two days. He' suffered very much from his knee, but bore it with great patience. He was to confession and Communion about a week before his death, on May 14. 1 was with him as usual, and he spoke about his return to New Zealand. On the morning of the loth hemorrhage set in about. 3 a.m. I was called, and arrived before 1 a.m., but found him almost unconscious. At once T administered Extreme "Unction, gave him the Apostolic Benediction with a plenary indulgence, a last Absolution, and lie calmy breathed his last. I regretted him very much. He was a fine specimen of an Irish Catholic, and a patriotic soldier. The Sisters were all attention to him. He was buried next day by the Rev. Father Ring from Melbourne. Once more accept all my sympathy.' HE DESERVES THE V.C. A non-Catholic soldier in the trenches pays a remarkable tribute to a. Catholic chaplain in a letter to his mother. He writes (on May 27") : ' This morning C and I went with the Catholic padre of our division— an absolutely splendid man — to visit the trenches taken from the Germans by our men and the Canadians. We first of all went into our own original line of breastworks and then, by a little winding communication trench made in the last few days, into the German trench — or shambles, I should say. Everyone says that if anyone deserves the V.C. it is the padre. He always crawls about the trenches separating the wounded from the dead, and seems to know no kind of fear; anyhow, he does not show it. All the men like him very much. He is a tall, gaunt, spectacled, clean-shaven manjust like a typical monk.' Writing from — probablyFestubert, he says : ' Its

ruins are very interesting; especially, again, an untouched crucifix, which is even more extraordinary than the crucifix at Givenchy, as it is literally surrounded by smashed houses on all sides. At Givenchy the church is in ruins, with the exception of the east wall, on which hangs a large crucifix. In the immediate neighborhood is a house battered by shell : the pictures in the rooms all destroyed, with the exception of one of our Lord, which, though surrounded by shrapnel shot, is unbroken and untouched.'

DISTINGUISHED SCOTO-IRISH SOLDIERS. Scoto-Irishmen are undoubtedly winning for themselves a. glorious reputation in the present war. In this class we (Catholic Timrs) include not only the Scotch-bom sons of Irish parents, but also Irishmen who have been resident in Scotland or who have joined Scottish regiments—and their name is legion. One has only to examine the casualty rolls of any of the Scottish regiments in order to discover to what a large extent they are composed of Irishmen. Among the most recent of these Scoto-Irishmen to attain distinction is Private F. McGrath, of the 2nd Royal lnniskilling Fusiliers, who was a miner at Motherwell when the war broke out. lie has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry at Givenchy, where he assisted in rescuing officers and men from a deep mine full of poisonous gas. lie carried through this work with an admirable spirit of courage and devotion to duty, without regard to the very great risk of asphyxiation which it entailed. He has a brother serving in the same regiment. Private McKenna, Bridgeton, Glasgow, has also been awarded the D.C.M. for conspicuous gallantry. He has had the unusual distinction of being twice recommended for the D.C.M. He belongs to the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He was all through the South African war, and bears the Queen Victoria and King Edward Medals. THE DOGS OF BELGIUM. The dog is used as a worker in Belgium, and has his share in the day's toil, whether in peace or in the ghastly surroundings of war. There are the draught dogs of the milk and vegetable sellers, and the dogs used by the military for the pulling of light machine guns and the appliances used by the Army Medical Corps. The draught dog of Belgium is a fine fellow. lie is firm on his feet, and his pads are so hard, tough,

and tried that he is free from foot weariness and when there is no work doings he lies down in his harness', between the, shafts of the two-wheeled cart, and dozes off, with his big and sensible head between his forefeet. Thus it is that, much as the dog lover of other countries hates to make the dog a beast of burden, he cannot help admiring the working dogs of Brussels and other Continental cities, where, to all appearance, they so thoroughly like their work. If the weather is bad and the road slippery, the foot of the dog has all the advantages over those of hoofed animals. It is true that the foot often suffers; but the owners are careful of their dogs, and a bath of hot water and a dressing of resin ointment will go a long way to clean and heal a sore in four and twenty hours. LIFE IN A SUBMARINE. The modern submarine has been rightly termed a ' matchbox full of machinery.' Its interior is a mass of delicate mechanism, and five men can easily operate every movement of a submarine merely by turning handwheels, or pulling switches and levers. When on the surface the craft travels like a motor boat. It is driven by petrol engines which answer two purposes. They -either operate the propellers in the rear of the submarine when it is awash or they can be connected to a dynamo which generates electricity for tho storage battery. The latter is the heart of the under-water vessel when it is beneath the waves. The electric battery drives the propellers and does all necessary work after the submarine has left the surface. A submarine is operated by emptying two large tanks, which causes the vessel to weigh about twenty per cent, less than an equal volume of water. The boat may be made to float higja or low by adjusting the amount of water in the tanks. This is known as ' trimming.' Unless the submarine is properly ' trimmed ' it is likely to turn turtle when travelling at full speed. There are two periscopes or observation tubes on a submarine, one for the helmsman looking straight ahead, and one for the commander-, giving a view all round, with binocular enlargement when desired. The crew in a submerged submarine watch every movement of their craft by means of dials, and they carry out all operations by means of levers or switches. The angle of diving or rising is automatically controlled by horizontal and vertical rudders. A so-called crusher gauge prevents the vessel from diving to a depth where it would be smached like an egg-shell by the pressure of water above. A ' depth ' gauge shows the distance of the submarine from the surface, another gauge indicates the vessel's speed, a third registers the amount of electricity stored, whilst a fourth dial shows the reserve of compressed air for breathing. Five men working in unison can operate a submerged submarine. The first man stands at a handwheel, which controls the horizontal or diving rudder. His eyes are fixed on a gauge which shows the degree of submersion and an instrument which tells him if the vessel is keeping on an even keel. A second man operates the vertical helm from the conning-tower, steering by compass. The third man has charge of - the electric motors in the stern of the boat, and a fourth stands by the central handwheel at the torpedo breeches in the bow of the vessel. The fifth man is the commander in the conningtower, who delivers all orders to his men by means of speaking-tubes. Torpedoes are fired from a tube by means of a handwheel. When this is spun rapidly round air pressures are set to work which send the deadly missile flying out of the tube at a mile-a-minute rate. Although space is limited, life in a submarine is not so unpleasant as many people, imagine. Under water the craft speeds quietly and smoothly with no vibration. The hum of the motors and the sharp words of command from the speaking-tubes are the only sounds which break the silence which reigns. The crew sleep in hammocks slung under the deck, and the commander has a collapsible berth. Cooking is carried out by

means of electric stoves, and. all garbage is »hot from the vessel through pneumatic outlets. THE PERISCOPE. The modern submarine, which has developed into one of the most potent factors of destruction in ' the European war, recalls the history of the periscope, the chief instrument of submarine growth in the progress of naval warfare (says an exchange). The trench periscope was described by Helvellius in the seventeenth century for military purposes, called the - polemoscope, which in its simplest form consisted of two mirrors with their reflecting surfaces parallel to each other and inclined at 45 degrees to the directions of the incident light. These mirrors were mounted in a tube and separated a convenient distance from each other. From this polemoscope was developed the optical perfection and elaboration of the modern periscope. In modern submarines the tube has a length of from 16 to 20 feet; the diameter is from 6 to 9 inches, while the field view is about 65 degrees, and in order that objects shall look their real size it is necessary to give a magnification of one and a-quarter to one an a-half. The field view of. the modern periscope is still limited, and scientists are working to overcome this difficulty. A recent improvement made consists of the use of a ring reflector, which enables a view of the whole horizon to be obtained at once. The image formed by the ring system is very distorted, but when picked up on the surface of the sea it can be examined more perfectly by means of the ordinary optical system. The continued use of the periscope even for modern trench warfare is very trying to the eyes, so- that devices have been used to throw the image upon a ground-glass screen. Either in land warfare or from under the sea it is absolutely necessary that the mirrors should be fixed at the correct angle and that there should be no doubling or distortion of the image.