NAVAL NOMENCLATURE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

NAVAL NOMENCLATURE.

HUMOURS OF WARSHIPS NAMES.

As there are something like eight hundred vessels in the Fleet and all of them, bar submarines and the smaller torpedo craft, are named, it can be readily appreciated that the problem which the First Lord of the Admiralty has to face annually in finding a score or so of new and appropriate names -s no light one. Six hundred ships take 6ome naming. They make a big hole in the list of possible warship designates, and force a First Lord to cu-ti-vate the gift of imagination. In its nomenclature the British Navy seems to have borrowed from every possible subject. There are ships called after battles, naval and military; after admirals and generals; kings and queens; emperors and princes; gods, goddesses, and mythological personages; countries and counties; rivers and towns; precious stones and trees; birds and animals; reptiles and fish; 6tars and atmospheric elements, and an endless variety besides. It is now difficult to break away on a new line in names. The man with ideas in nomenclature ought to be welcomed at Whitehall. In the long list of warship names there are frequent evidences of the whims and fancies of various First Lords.

Boxer, Bruiser, and names of a similar nature have come down in consequence of a naval administrator who used to find nomenclature inspiration amongst his hounds, and the abundance of classical and mythological names in the fleet is largely due to the Earl of Sandwich, who seldom went past " Lempriere's Classical Dictionary" when there was any warship christening to be done. In the case of the present Marlborough we see Mr. Winston Churchill pay. ing honour to his famous ancestor. One can well imagine though, that he would have preferred to have used the family name. KNOCKING "L" OUT OF THE ENEMY. Just a little more than a year ago, too, the late First Lord, turned to literature for a batch of destroyer names, and for a time we had a lot of Scott and Shakespearean characters thus hon-

MOTOR VAN DRIVER

oured, among them Rob Roy, Red Gauntlet, Ivanhoe, Orlando, Portia, etc. However, Mr. Churchill changed his mind, and introduced an alphabetical system for destroyer names, whereby the Rosalinds, and the Hotspurs, and the rest of the "literary'' flotilla became the "L" class, which meant they all got names beginning with L, thus Lance, Legion, Lennox, Lyal, etc. The "L's" have particularly distinguished themselves in the war, taking part in the Heligoland Bight action, the battle of the Dogger Bank, and the destroyer action off the Dutch coa6t. When this class had their names changed it became a popular saying on the lower deck that they were built to knock 'ell out of the Germans. So far they have been doing it very well. According to this alphabetical system, the list for the current year should be the "N's". There is not much difficulty about that. But think of the poor First Lord who, ten or twelve years hence, will be faced with the task of allocating the X's and the Y's and the Z"s Mr. Churchill has laid up no end of trouble for his successor ?bout 1925.

One of the most remarkable contrasts in the Navy in the way of names is that a few weeks ago we had a Triumph and a Repulse. Why any First Lord allowed this latter name to pass is inexplicable, for it is the same word as defeat, and no ship wants to be styled H.M.S. Defeat, especially when companion ships are the Victorious, the Victory, the Triumph.etc. It is omnious, too, that we have lost our Triumph (torpedoed and sunk at the Dardanelles), whereas the Repulse is still with us. However, we are not superstitious, and what' 6 in o name? Still, there must have been a mortgage of " RV' when they put tho Repulse into the Royal Sovereign class. A "GLASGOW," BUT NO "EDINBURGH." To help the Admiralty out of its nomenclature difficulties the suggestion was made in the Welsh press recently that one of the new battleships should be called Gwalia, a 6 it was pointed out that there was a paucity of names from the Principality. But, then, what price a Caledonia or a Scotia ? Only Ireland has been thus honoured; she ha-s the and the Erin. But we, at all events, have H.M.S. Thistle. On the outbreak of the war there were about 54 English place-name* (towns, rivers, counties, etc.) in the Navy 15 Scottish (including Berwich, Argyll, Roxburgh. Glasgow, and a number of rivers), 12 Irish, and 4 Welsh.

The Colonies are also well represented as the Canada, Dominion, Commonwealth, Australia (gift ship), Zealandia, New Zealand (gift ship), Malaya (gift ship) Hindustan, Natal, Gibraltar, as well as some Australian town and rivers.

It is a good idea this calling the warships after places, for it serves to stimulate interest along the line of the regimental theory, though it need not be thought that H.M.S. Argyll is such a living institution ti the people of Ar-gyll-shire as the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Of course it leads to petty jealousies. Edinburgh wonders why it has not a namesake when there is an H.M.S. Glasgow; Perthshire says " I'm bigger than Berwick, why don't I get a crniser"; and a river like the Clyde, which has built so many warships, has reason for complaint when it is passed over in favour of mountain torrents and trouting streams. A RAGTIME FLOTILLA!

At present there is an agitation in favour of calling German South-West Africa Bothaland. In this connection it is interesting to note that one of our latest flotilla leaders is the Botha. A •ister ship is the Tipperary, in honour of the Army's popular marching song. At this rate we may expect in the near future to see the Tipperary leading a ragtime flotilla—Dixie, Robert E. Lee, Mississippi, Get Out and Get Under, etc! The latter would certainly make

a good challenge if not a suitable name varied to the "Come Out and Go Under."

Tipperary is a name that will please the Navymen, for it reminds them of the heroes of the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, who jestingly said as they struggled for life in the water..."lt's a long way to Tipperary...when you've got to swim there." Further, the name smacks of the free, and-easy and the humorous, and that is just what Jack wants. That is why he refers to H.M.S. Glory as the "Alleluia," and to the Conqueror as the "Corn-curer," to the Falmouth as "Foul Mouth," the Forward as "Hurry Up," the Hawke as the "Awkward,"* the Highflyer as the "High Falutin" the Iron Duke as the " Dook" or " Lloyd George," the Lucifer as the "Matchbox," the Lyre as the " Liar," the Phaeton as the "Fat-'un," the Triton as the "Try it on," and the Amphitrite as the "'Am and Tripe." And he does not spare his shipmates in the way of nicknames. The signalman is known as the "bunting tosser," the sickbay steward becomes the " poultice mixer;" "sparker" is the familiar name for the wireless operator; and, of course, Putty, Chippies, and Jimmy Bungs are our old friends the painter, the carpenter, and the cooper. QUITE A MENAGERIE.

The boasts of the field and the birds of the air have proved an unceasing iount of inspiration for warship names. " When you cannot decide, make it an nuimal or a bird," would 6eem to be one of the maxims of the nomenclature department at Whitehall, and so large is the zoological contingent in our first line that were the ships to be transformed into their namesakes the Admiralty would find its dockyards and naval bases turned into menageries and zoological gardens. The collection would be not tar short of a hundred, including between thirty and forty animals, a similar number of birds, and half a dozen each of fish, reptiles, and insects.

Some of these menagerie names are quite appropriate; some the reverse. Such names as the Lion, Tiger, Bulldog, Shark, etc., could hardly be improved upon, but one does not associate much fighting instinct with the Oppossum, the Whiting, the Midge, or the Lark.

Indeed, it is altogether an anomalous menagerie. It includes a Tiger three dozen times the size of the Tigress, and a Leopard which is only an eightieth of the Lion. Then there is a- Fox ten times the size of the Vixen and aHawk which stands in much the same proportion to the Goshawk. But the latter has this advantagc.it is still afloat; the Hawk lies at the bottom of the North Sea, sixty miles oft Aberdeen. We have further a Dove that is the equal of the Kestrel; a Grasshopper as powerful as the Bulldog; a Mosquito which can sting as strongly as the Rattlesnake; a Shark which would have to retreat if two or three Whitings attacked it; and a Midge, which could take care of itself if the Sparrowhawk tried to eat it. This is natural history turned topsyturvy. Then there are other classifications which might have been done more carefully. Why make the Beagle three times as large as the Bulldog, and put the Mastiff, the Lurcher, and the foxhound in different classes Why make a Lark equal to six Woodlarks? or a Lapwing ten times the size of the Snipe? Why give the Beaver the same speed as the Racehorse? We can find the same inconsistencies in other classes —an Acorn as big as the Oak; a Royal Oak forty times the size of its ordinary namesake; a Star, a Meteor, and a Comet of different types, and a Rifleman who is no relative of the Marksman. And so on.

But ,of course, they are only names, and, as Shakespeare asked..." What's in a name?"