ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14975, 23 May 1914, Page 9

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

DEI'OT SHIP FOR SUBMARINES / Ono of tho most interesting contracts which has come tho way of Clyde. ■ builders for a- good'many years is an- _ nounced to-day (says the London "Shipping Gazette" of April 17th). A submarine depot ship for the- Australian' Government is, it is stated, to. bo built; at Clydebank. Nothing ie said about th© design of the vessel, or her size or speed; bat she will, doubtless, incor-t porate a considerable number of features now to Clyde practice. No depot ship of exactly tho same kind has yet been built on tho river, though, within recent years two naval ''auxiliaries", of interesting typos have been constructed. Thus there was launched in April, 1912, the survey ship Endeavour, which w designed "for'surveying the navigable waters of the world" —a rather largtorder —and in September of tho same year there launched tho destroyer depot s&ip Woolwich. : The Clydebank vessel will necessarily be different from these, differait even from tho AYoolwich. Tho Commonwealth Government already have two submarines —AE 1 and AE 2—and they will bo obtaining more as their fleet unit -iiicrea? as hi numbers generally. Their leading ship—tho battle-cruiser Australia—was built at Clydebank in 1911: their three completed destroyers aro of Clyde-built; while ono of their eecond-cla-ss cruisors—the Sydney—-woe built at Govan. Tho Clyde, therefore/ is having a very large- share in the con* struction of tho new Australian Navy. ,-, ._