The Dominion FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1943. WHITE AND RED ENSIGNS IN WAR

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 5, 1 October 1943, Page 4

The Dominion FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1943. WHITE AND RED ENSIGNS IN WAR

To a greater extent than in the last war the activities of the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy have been interwoven with the enterprises of the armed forces both on land and in the air. 1 his has been due to the development since the war began of the new tactics of combined operations in which co-operative action on the part of land, sea and air forces has now become an established principle of modern warfare. But it still requires an occasional reminder, such as was voiced by the Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, in an address to the New Zealand Navy League War Council at its annual meeting in Wellington, to stress the immense importance of the task allotted to the Navy and Merchant Service in this war. As the speaker expressed it. the traditional silence in which the two services under the White and the Red ensigns carry on their work is apt to obscure the fact that though there might be victories and lulls in the fighting of most services, the work of the Navy and of the merchant seamen goes on day and night for 365 days of the year, “continuously, quietly and efficiently.” Land and air battles have figured prominently in the story of the present conflict, but, with the exception of such thrilling episodes of naval warfare as the sinking of the Graf Spee, the round-up and end of the Bismarck, the Battle of the Coral Sea in the Pacific, and other isolated encounters, there has been nothing like the traditional trial of strength between rival navies as was seen at the battles of Trafalgar, in Nelson’s time, and Jutland during the last war. The reason, of course, is that the Germans in the present war had no battle fleet to speak of compared with the British, preferring to rely on a policy of commerce-destroying by surface raiders, which soon disappeared from the scene, and submarines, against which a long arduous struggle, with fluctuating odds, has been waged. The Italian battle-fleet, aitei , S V S .” taining several frightening shocks . administered by the British Mediterranean fleet, took refuge in its bases, and only appeared in force on its voyage of surrender to the Allies; and the Japanese, evidently impressed by the mauling received by some of their squadrons in the Pacific, have so far pursued a similar safe policy, and kept thenmain fleet well out of harm’s way. But the general lines on which this war has developed have actually thrown a greater strain on the resources of the Navy and Merchant Service than ever before. With the French Navy immobohzed by the armistice of 1940, and until the. entry of America into the war, the whole burden of carrying on the Allied war at sea, of escorting the convoys vital to maintaining the struggle, protecting troop transports to far distant theatres of the conflict, has fallen on the men serving under the White and the Red ensigns. There has been no let up. J here could have been no let up. Had it not been for the Navy and Mercantile Marine, Britain would have been starved into defeat, no food from overseas would have reached her shores, and the Empire would have been disintegrated for easy conquest piece-meal by the enemy. That these things did not happen is due to the men who have striven, and fought, and died, to maintain our vital command of the sea.