NEWS & THE FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1938, Page 18

NEWS & THE FLEET

THE NAVAL ATTITUDE

A CURIOUS INDIFFERENCE

FACTS NOT PASSED ON

As the Fleet Air Arm comes more and more under naval influence, as) the personnel becomes more and more J exclusively naval, we should expect to see a progressive improvement in the quality of the reconnaissance work done for the fleet, writes the naval correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." Doubts, however, arise, from two sources: first, the general attitude of the naval mind towards the getting of information,' and, secondly, the tendency, already well marked, to reduce reconnaissance to a subsidiary place in the functions for which naval aircraft are designed. In the course of many years' attendance at naval manoeuvres and with a fairly intimate knowledge of intelligence work during the war, there has been born a conviction that the naval officer, broadly speaking; has far less realisation of the vital importance of. information than^ he/believes himself to have. If a : discussion comes round to the subject it is rather startling to the temporary member, experienced in news gathering, to hear the heretical views that are quite earnestly expressed by the naval officers. The trained newspaper man finds it - hard, for example, to credit that anyone could seriously hold that it was "not his place" to pass qn definitely ascertained facts about a hostile fleet or squadron.. It is not a case of what Lord Fisher called "Buggins's turn," though that clement does enter, into it. It is more, apparently, that the intrinsic value of the news is not realised. '~'■■ FACTS NOT COMMUNICATED. There have been instances in my personal experience and there were instances (publicly recorded) during the war where facts which had a vital bearing on the imrridiate operations were known to. the responsible officers in one ship but were,not communicated tff the admiral: -Let me briefly summarise two such cases to point the meaning more clearly. . , i During manoeuvres a year or two ago we were the last ship in the line in,a fleet which Was endeavouring to elude pursuit from a more .powerful enemy. We had .disengaged as dusk fell, and up to midnight the enemy had not found us again. Then 5000 yards behind us on our port quarter we on the bridge of the last ship of the line picked out dim silhouettes catching up on us. I was standing by the captain on the bridge and fully expected a signal to be made to the flagship. We were nearer to the enemy than anyone else. Most probably we were the only ones who had seen him in the darkness. No, order was given for' the signal to be made. Within a few minutes the enemy fired a starshell. We were fully exposed, and about an hour later the chief umpire signalled "Negative exercise." We were annihilated. Next day I asked discreetly whether the information had been passed to the flagship. The question seemed to cause some surprise. Of course it' had not, was the burden of the answer I received. And to my naive "Why?" the reply, came, "Well, you see, it wasn't' our place to'do anything." A JUTLAND INCIDENT. During the night fighting at the Battle of Jutland two battleships in a squadron rather astern of the Grand Fleet saw ships in action. on their starboard quarter (behind them to their right). The glare of battle enabled both of them to recognise distinctive features in the silhouette of the enemy ships. Both record the incident in their official reports, '■ and one tentatively described the enemy ships as belonging to the Westfalen cluss of battleships. That information certainly was passed to the Com-mander-in-Chief—but by • letter; ' In one case on June 2, in the other on June 6. But it was not passed to anyone at 11.35 p.m. on May 31. Yet it was an ascertained.fact that German battlelhips of the main body were passing astern of the Grand Fleet, "steering to the eastward," which was their direct route for the Horns Reef and the shelter of their own minefields. Now, to the trained journalist it is very much his place to tell his office at once any ascertained facts about something that is in the news. It does not matter whether he is the man on the job or not. If he knows or if he finds out any facts that bear on it, he must inform the office. . What use is made of •'the information is the concern of those in charge of the paper. MATTER OF ORGANISATION. It is submitted that much the same general rule could fittingly be applied to naval "news" in battle. When this was suggested to one senior naval officer he 'was appalled at the picture of congestion in the signals department that it called up. And he talked of "wireless silence" and giving away the position of the fleet. As to the first objection, the reply is that it is a matter of organisation. Any one daily newspaper takes in every night, as a matter of routine, far more .material, (in the mere number of words) than is contained in all the signals passed between all the ships of the Grand Flee+ between 2 p.m. on May 31 and 2 a.m. on June 1, 1916. It takes in routine calls and emergercy calls with equal ease and speed. It is not as though a fleet flagship worked, its wireless communications on one circuit. And since Jutland beam wireless telephone has added a new means of transmitting urgent information. It is not as though wireless were the only means of communication... True, we have reason to know that the use of the flashing lamp can be dangerous, but lack of information can be more so. It is difficult to be convinced that the signals department of a fleet flagship cannot be organised to cope with an emergency - lood of messages, even when there is the superimposed task of "decoding and deciphering. The vapidity with which this work can be - done by trained men was. shown time and again during the Battle of Jutland. Take the historic signal of 7.47 p.m. from Beatty to Jellicoe, "Submit van of battleships follow battle-cruisers," and so forth. It was received in the Iron Duke at 754 Somewhere between 8.7 and 8.14 (the logs-differ as to times of origin and receipt) Jellicoe's decision, was sent' to the leading battleship. SOME RAPIt WORK. That is to say, the deciphering department of the flagship had made plain-English of the signal and sent it to the bridge, the Admiral' had studied it and made up his mind, the enciphering staff of the Iron Duke had transliterated the reply, and the deciphering staff of the King George V had put it back into plain language, all in twenty minutes at the most, and possibly within thirteen ■ minutes, unless the clocks of the King George V were hopelessly slow. Cipher work seems immensely difficult to those who have had no practice at it. So, too, no doubt, does sub-editing and headline writing to those who never do