Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, JULY 23rd, 1917. NAVAL STRATEGY.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, JULY 23rd, 1917. NAVAL STRATEGY.

In tho course of an interview grume's tlie Associated Press in April, Admiral Sir John. Jellicoe said it cannot be denied that naval strategy has undergone a vast cJiange as the.result of the illegal use by Germany of submarines. Of course, at'is also undoniablo that their use legitimately has changed naval warfare. But the legitimate change is not so great, nor so difficult to- cope with as the illegal use of submarines. Their advent as a lighting weapon bus mado a coast blockade of an enemy’s coast .impossible, and has added to the difficulties' we face on account of natural features of the German coast line lor either attack or defence. Against naval Germany the British Isles are tipped the wrong way. One of the disadvantages tinder which we suffered during tho early part ui tho war was that we had no harboui in the North Sea b'ig enough to boiu tho growing .Grand Fleet where it could lie within easy striking distance of the enemy. One of the most Miming results of the legitimate use-of submarines has been to compel heavy ships, in order to obtain protection from their attacks, to be accompanied by destroyers when they put to sea, and this fact reduces the radius of. adtion of a fleet on account of the limited fuel capacity of the destroys». The most striking feature of the change in our historic naval policy resulting from the illegal use of submarines and from the fact that enemy surface ships have been driven from the sea, is that wo have been cum polled to abandon a definite offensive policy for one which may be called pn offensive defensive, since our only active enemy is the submarine engaged in, piracy and murder. \Vo must give our mercantile fleet a measure of protection which would not be droamedi of if tho Germans merely'used their “U” boats for legitimate naval warfare, and so many of our smaller warships must be used for this purpose that the “tip-and-run” raid becomes a possibility, while our own blockading efforts suffer. This again brings us back to the importance of small craft for the protection of the mercantile marine. But they cannot end the submarine menace by merely keeping j the “U” boats beneath the waiter We want to end the evil by desw eying the boats andwe mean to do it. Tho. solution of this problem offers p.enty of scope for the inventive genius of both navies. Zoobruggo forms another of our problems. It is difficult v.< deal with now, owing to Overman occupation and fortification of the Belgian coast. No naval officer, even before this war, ever believed that- it. was the business of a capital ship to stand up against a land fort as land ■■ guns have greater facilities for fending the rang© that a gun mounted cm a ship. But the fortifiad Belgian coast ja f fact which we have to fac*,, and

tlie destroyers maintained there have mad© our work of guarding the Straits of Dover mor e difficult. The Germans in their tip-and-run raids, during which which they. have committed the additional illegality and the inhumanity of bombarding open towns, have tlie great advantage of choosing tho time of attack, amd when as many as thirty destroyers can attack a patrol you may gain some idea of the number of vessels wo need on guard constantly to stop every raid. We have met thorn, inoro than once at night, but it is difficult to insure that the mooting shall.not find us in considerable inferiority, owing to the dispersion necessary to a watcliing force.