A Priceless Naval Secret.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 7 August 1914, Page 8

A Priceless Naval Secret.

It is the common .belief nowadays that the nation which possesses the largest ships and the finest and the most deadly guns is the nation that would emerge victorious from a modern naval war. To a certain degree this is true, but the part that is played by more recent inventions than either guns or ships must -iot be lost sight of, for in the light of modern discovery a great naval battle might, to a certain extent, be decided before the opposing fleets had sighted each other's mastheads. To the average Britisher whose knowledge of naval , matters does not extend beyond stereotyped Admiralty or newspaper reports this will at once sound ludicrous ; but does the man in the street realise to what a degree the game of "bluff" can be carried on by one of the most, apparently, harmless of I modern inventions—wireless telegraphy ? In tiie same way that our Navy has the finest guns, the most perfect method of preserving the exj plosive properties of ammunition,

and the fastest ships, it is fitted with the most perfect wireless system in v the world. This would at first seem improbable, in view of the fact that Germany; Japan, France, and all other Great Powers have the Marconi system, and use the Morse code.

But Britain's supremacy in wireless is assured by what is known to her wireless experts as the "rejector," the properties of which, as the name would suggest, are to reject all messages, or ether-waves, which are not meant for the British fleet.

By this simple contrivance the once-possible trick of breaking up our fleet's messages is obviated, while, on the other hand, an English operator, having once "tuned "

his instrument to the current of an opposing vessel, is able to play havoc with all its communications, and indeed, in most cases, would be able to render a fleet's wireless perfectly useless.

An interesting illustration of the

"bluff" it is possible to make use of by the possession of this little invention can be found in the fact that at the recent Irish Sea manoeuvres an up-to-date torpedoboat destroyer, lying oh' the northeast coast of Ireland, was able to completely break up the messages of two battleships which were not using the "rejector." and to render their wireless quite useless, while they were totally incapable of making any effect upon the little craft's signalling apparatus with its valuable attachment.

It is needless to remark that the "rejector" which is encased in a very insignificant box in our battleships' win-less houses, is an invention which constitutes one of the most zealously-guarded secrets of the British Sea Lords.—"Tit