WORK OF THE GRAND FLEET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1758, 11 September 1917, Page 1

WORK OF THE GRAND FLEET.

Referring to the work of the British Navy recently, Rear-Admiral Lionel Halsey, Third Sea Lord, said the great increase in the navy during the war had been obtained almost entirely from the mercantile marine, which had provided 10,931 officers and 05,000 men, while the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve had supplied and trained 4,828 officers and 28,000 men. As a naval officer, he could say without hesitation that these men, after three years of Avar, were the same as though they had always been officers and men of the Royal Navy. They had the same feelings and traditions, and in every Avay showed the great Avorth of the service from which they came. Admiral Halsey said that at the start of the Avar the enemy had placed raiders all over the Avorld, but all the raiders, with tAVo exceptions, had been accounted for. The fleet had ahvays been ready and anxious to meet the Germans in battle. Only once had the enemy dared to enter the main thoroughfare to the outer seas —on May 31st, 1910 —and there had not been a single German raid that had not been followed by a blow from the British Fleet. If the navy should be defeated the British Isles Avould be starved out in a month, but Avith the fleet remaining intact and the ceaseless vigilance of the thousands of small merchant craft that kept the higlnvays free from mines, there avus no need for fear. The enemy might raid England, but he Avould guarantee that the army and the navy together could prevent any raid from proA’ing successful.