A COSTLY TARGET

Evening Star, Issue 14932, 19 July 1912, Page 5

A COSTLY TARGET

For some years an old wooden hulk, aamed the Howden, lay in the roadstead »t Jamestown, St. Helena. Latterly she had don'* duty as a quarantine station, but during the Boer War she was found insufficiently commodious, and a station was therefore established on shore, the old hulk being abandoned altogether. For some time she lay idle, the authorities hiing unable eiiher to sell her or to put her to practical use. It was eventually decided, however, to utilise her as a target for some new batteries of 6in guns, w-hich had been built on the cliffs. One fine morning, accordingly, ihe was towed some three or four miles oat to sea by a tug, and there cast adrift. As soon as the tug was clear the batteries opened fire. The garrison artillerymen, however, made but indifferent practice, and thereupon H.M. gunboat Dwarf, which was steaming in the offing, opened fire with her 4.7'5. She dropped shell after shell on the Howden's decks, and finally, one bursting in the vessel's interior, sank her. As target practice it. was excellent. There was a sequel, however. The authorities, a few hours later, were astounded by the information that the cable communication with Cape Colony was interrupted. To cut the story short, a cable-repair ship had to be summoned from the West Coast of Africa, some 1,000 miles away, and, aftT weeks of continuous grappling, the cable was at length picked up. It was then found that the old hulk had sunk on the exact spot where the cable lay, and, unfortunately, where it crossed a slight depression in the bed of the ocean. The weight of the hulk had consequently snapped it in two. This little affair cost the Imnerial Government no less a sum than £5,000.