The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times." SATURDAY, MARCH 5th, 1921. THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1921, Page 2

The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times." SATURDAY, MARCH sth, 1921. THE WEEK.

Tiik week's mail has brought English files which contain much criticism ol that greatest of events in the Great War- the battl o of Jutland—wherein the mastery of the sea was determined definitely. From the official despatches Mr Arthur Mason, the w e ll known Australian writer, has written an interesting article of the wonderful oittlo story which means so much to the history of the world. We win not do better to-day than reprint in his column additional particulars of the.gmitejt and most momentous of sea lights as the writer saw them from the plain tales told by officers responsible for the official despatches covering the battle and it.s surroundings:

The issu P by the Admiralty of the higg-awaited Jutland despatches, for one thing, has aroused widespread interest in a public always concerned about the activities of the navy and particularly eager for information as to the great naval battle with the Germans to which so much mystery and bewilderment have attached. For another thing, possession of the official documents has given a new zest to the standing quarrel of the naval experts as to two points in particular —Lord ' Jellicoe’s strategy in the Jutlvul engagement and the navy’s future in the matter of the contending claims to predominance ol the battleship and the sulimuriiK- respectively In neither regard, however. (In the despatches provide a wholly satisfactory answer to the various questions at issue, for it is next to impossible for anyone to weigh accurately the enormous amount of evidence now put forward, much of it highly technical, and its bulk that of two volumes, one of 600 pages tilled with detail, and one a collection of Admiralty charts —while not even its participants can supply the mass of intangible but often decisive minutiae of such a battle, fought at high speed in difficult seas, with the contestants at one stage far apart, and only haljf-risiblo and lit another stage involved in a welter of confusion of ships of all grades, wthin which the position of the fighting and flying enemy was only to bp guessed at from a surrounding of mist or smoke or darkness; and nothing at all was certain save the uncertainty of everything. The whole detail of the despatches nerds to be thoroughly understood before a fair judgment can be passed and only a very limited few hnv,. either the opportunity or the capacity so to fift these volumes. For that reason there is much complaint that the official Admiralty report of Captain Harper on the battle of Jutland, compiled by him and a committee of experts after months of study, has not also been issued by the Admiralty as a condensed and much more generally intelligible record. Why it is withheld we do not know; but here at all events is the official account of the engagement, and its issue ts eer-

ta.inlv an effective answer to the public for an unworthy reason.

And, a ?fter all, if a thorough elucidation of the many problems of Jutland demand a mind highly trained in naval science, much, nevertheless, is made available to the average reader bv the story here unfolded, tor seen oil its surface it is a wonderful story. It begins with a message from the Admiralty in Whitehall to Jellicoe at Soaps Flow, on the afternoon of May 30th., instructing him to prepare for eventualities,” and thereafter, minute !> y minute—almost second by secondwireless messages, telegrams and signals were showered between ships and stu- ; tions, between the Commander-in-Cldef on his ship and his officers on theirs—instructions, reports, questions, answers - hundreds of messages. They are all here, and the quality of the drama they shared in is easily to be read. The^ difficulty of achieving effectual messages in respect of swiftly-moving ships fiercely in action in any ease was great. It was found to be insuperable now and then. Instructions came too lat e > !l some cases. In other eases they were received mutilated by contact with the similarly whirring showers of German wireless instructions. I bus at the outset there was a loss ol touch between Jellieoe’s battleships coming from Scapa Flow and Beatty’s cruisers coming from Rosyth. while later Jellicoe had great difficulty in ascertaining the enemy's position. But by follow--1 mg tlm exciting sequence of wireless , messages, semaphore and flag signals • the reader gains a vivid picture of the I scene by day and night watches the pro- | gross in one part of the fray of Beati ty’s ships, and can almost see Jellicoe’s squadrons racing eastward to the scone , —the Commander-in-Chief flashing as 1 he came messages of inquiry or instruction. notes the retreat of School*'s cruisers upon Lis supporting battleships. Beatty’s responsive movement and the succeedin'! manoeuvres of the Grand

Fleet; has swift glimpses c.f the course of th e action, the effect of the guns, tlie sinkings and the crippling of ships on both sides; and, finally, is in touch with the disappointing climax of the enemy’s escape homeward under cover of night. It is a great story as it is unfolded by this record of the signa's and messages, and it is emphasised as such by the reports of admirals and commanders of the part played in the engagement by the ships and the men they led.

A mom; these are some inspiring histories of an eventful day and night—none more inspiring perhaps, than the report of the young lieutenant-comman-der of the destroyer Spitfire, with its graphic story of the events alter 10.15 oil the night of May 31 when his little craft sank one cruiser, and rammed and was simultaneously rammed by another, losing her bridge, searchlight platform, mast .and loremost funnel, and sustaining a shot at point-blank range—a great story, its drama vivid despite the mid-night darkness ol the encounter, and its heroisms on the loftiest level. Here to is Paketilmm’s report of the share taken in the tight by the New Zealand from her place in the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, in which lie said that the Battle Cruiser licet and the Fifth Battle Squadron (the Barhams, first of the battleships to some up) between them “bad perlormed a magnificent feat of arms. lhe position of this body relative to the enemy could have geen improved. It had inflicted severe punishment upon him. and was ready to supplement tin* frontal attack of the principal forces. For such an attack 'light was necessary, and visibility already began to fail. . . The atmosphere was thickening, and this, together with the turning away of the enemy fleet, resulted ill touch being lost. . , The British I fit. that .although an unlimited success lead been earned, only a limited one had been obtained. The Germans had more cause to rejoice, as they had escaped annihiliation.”

ie the matter of disputed points, the now famous “turning away” movement of Jellicoe is revealed as provided lor a year and seven months before the battle, when in a memorandum approved and reapproved b.V successive Boards of Admiralty, the Commander-in-Chief detailed his proposed course of action in the event, of enemy menace by torpedoes and mines. Jellicoe anticipated, too, the attacks which would he made upon him for his refusal to be rash. “T feel,” lie said, “that such tactics, if not understood, may bring odium upon me, but so long as j have the confidence of their Lordships, T intend to pursue what is in my considered opinion, the proper course to defeat and annihiliate the enemy’s battle fleet, without regard to uninstructed opinion or criticism.” There, surely, is high moral courage, and the general opinion to-day is that Jellieoo’s tactics were* well justified by reason of this official endorsement of them, and that, however much the critics of the “dashjng school” may blame liis caution, with the British navy at stake, he w.is probably wise not to risk being drawn by the enemy into the dangers of mines ;ind submarines. Similarly, liis scheme of deployment is now very generally held to have been the right move, and one determined upon with switt and masterly decision. The relative merits of gun and torpedo remain hotly in disi puto, and will remain so many a day, ! in which regard, indeed the despatches will long continue to lie the basis of naval commentator’s reflections upon the great sen-battle of the war. But outside disputed points, tlieso papers are the authoritative word upon matters of high inttrest. They do not reveal why Tyrwliitt’s destroyers were ordered by the .Admiralty back to Harwich, and kept there throughout the battle—our best conjecture is that a raid in force upon the East Coast was believed to be the enemy’s objective but they teach us how effective were the directional stations on that coast, and other sources of information, in the matter of the Admiralty’s knowledge in advance of the enemy’s movements. Less satisfactory is the feature referred to by Jellieoe’s dispatch as unpalatuLie—that “five German battle-cruisers engaging six British vessels ol that class. supported, after the first 20 minutes, although at great range by the tiro of four battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class, were vet able to sink the Queen Mary and the Indefatigable” —a disaster due, as he goes on to point out, to “the indifferent armour protection of our battle-cruisers, particularly as regards turret armours and

deck plating.” And, finally, it is now known that the enemy sprang surprises upon our navy; first in the matter of speed of the Third Squadron of the High Sea Fleet, which, believed to be capable of no more than 22 knots, maintained their distances when the Queen Elizabeths, nominally of 25knot capacity, was racing after them ; and, secondly, in respect of the admitted superiority of the German night signals and searchlights, as to which Jellicoe frankly says. “We have a good deal to learn from them.”

And after Jutland the High Seas Fleet, having escaped by good strategy, plus tbo darkness of the night, never came out again. To-day its ships lie beneath the waters of the Scapa Mow. Those facts, are an eloquent commentary enough upon the sea fight these welcome despatches immortalise.