UNKNOWN

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 122, 17 December 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN

BY FREDERICK PALMER.

I article by Mr Palmer will be id with great interest. "The oaes" has been publishing this and l»er articles, winch are chapters tin Mr Palmer's forthcoming book, iy Year of War," which ought be intensely interesting.)

us far wo nave skirted around the ; of things, which in a Fleet is al(he Commander-in-Chief's flagship handy, agile destroyer ran alonga battleship with as much nonnco as she would go alongside >r. 1 should not have been suri to have seen her pirouette oyer tills or take to flight, e knew the flagship by the adIs' barges astern as you know ocation of an army headquarters a automobiles. It seemed in the K of the Fleet at anchor, if that

nautical expression. Where its \would be in action is one of gecrets as important to the enes tho locationof a general's shellshelter in Flanders. Perhaps John Jellicoe may be on some ship in battle. If there is any ooli&ii question which one should tsk it is this. a first heard of Jellicoe fifteen ago, when he was Chief of Start r Edward Seymour, then Coiu-er-in-Chief of the Asiatic SquadIndeed, one was always \hearing > Jellicoe in those days on the k coast. He was the kind of man i people talk about after they met him, which means personalwas in China seas, you may nber, when a few British seamen hard pressed in a fight that was urs, that the phrase, "Blood is jr than water" sprang from the f an American commander, who i not on international etiquette, rent to the assistance of the Bri-

• will anyone who was present s summer of '9B forget how Sir rd Chichester stood loyally by AdGeorge Dewey, when the German ron was empire-lighting in the s of Manila Bay, until, our Atfleet had won the battle of San•nd Admiral Dewey had received ireementa and, East ond West, ere able to look after the Ger-

i general of high command must rrounded by more pomp than an al in time of act.on. A headers cannot have the simplicity i quarter-deck. The force which meral commands is not in sight; dmiral's is. You saw the coning and you saw what it was that nmanded. Within the sweep of ■rom the quarter-deck was the I power which the man with the Wld band on his arm directed, ttgnal from hnn it would move, ko uld stand still. That command hua's, if given by Sir John, one it, might have been obeyed. hundred, two hundred, three ed. four hundred 12-inch guns rger which could carry two hun»n» of metal in a single broad>r a distance of eighteen thouyards. But do not forget the guns, bristling under the big ike needle® from cushion, which keep of! the torpedo assassins; i. light cruisers, or the colliers, ' destroyers, or the 2000 trawad mine-layers, and what not, der his direction. Ho had subis too, double the number of the n. But with all the German '-war in the harbour, they had rgets. Where were they ? One t ask questions which would not iwered. Waiting, as the whole i Fleet was waiting, for the Uerto show their heads, while cruiere abroad scouting the North

lEGCING FOR BATTLE. ;hc outset of the w»r the Uerleet might have had one chance of getting a turn of fortune favour bv an unexpected stroke itegy. This was the danger Admiral Jellicoe had to guard >. For in one sense, the Geriad the tactical offensive by sea as by land; theirs the outward from the centre. They could when como out of their r; when to strike. The British keep watch all the time, and ly whenever the enemy should

the British Grand Fleet was in tho early part of the war, Z hero and there, begging for Then it was that it learned i avoid the submarines and the Rds. Submarines had played r part than expected, because ry had chosen a guerilla naval : to harass, to wound, to wear Doubtless she hoped to reduce über of British fighting units by

might bo in plant for arms for an army, but not in Iding. Hero was her true gejho was a maritime Power; CJeri land Power. Her part an an France and Russia being to id the sea, all demands of the Ity for material must take preover demands of the War Oft the end of the first year she reased her fighting power by sea ;ill higher ratio of preponder-i-or the Germans; in another c would increase it further, ral von Tirpitz wanted nothing i as to draw the British Fleet he guns of Heligoland or into ■field and submarine trap. lli. in Jelicoe refused the bait, he had completed his precaujd his organisation to meet all iditions, his l'leet need not. go l 0 open. His Dreadnought* est at anchor at a base while its kept in touch with all tlm sing, and his auxiliaries and •re fought the submarines, t a British Dreadnought having hot »t a Herman Dreadnought, ! on the face of the seas might I vessel show the (ionium flag >v thrusting it above the water \v minutes. ' . in Tirpitz sent his Meet out might find himself in a trap , and submarines. Ho was josiiarines and England was bujlure_ H's force, rather r John Jellicoe's, was suffering trition. The blockade was comIceland to the North Sea. the world knew of the work irm j e u the care that this task the hardships endured, the of energy, were T n behind that veil of secrecy bviouslv must be more closely ovef iiuval tliau out army ions.

From this flagship the campaign was directed. One would think tnat many officers and many clerks would be required. But the offices and the clerks were at the Admiralty. Here was the execution. In a room perhaps four feet by six was jfche wireless focus which received all the reports and sent all the orders, with trim blue-jackets at the keys. "Go!" and "Come!" the messages were saying; they wasted no words. Officers of the Stalf did their work in narrow space, yet seemed to have plenty of room. Red tape is inflammable. There is no more place for it on board a flagship prepared for action than tor unnecessary woorwork.

At every turn the compression and the concentration of power were like tho guns and tho decks, cleared for action, significant in directness of purpose. The system was planetary in its impressive simplicity, the more striking as nothing that mad has ever made is more complicated or includes more kinds of machinery than a batleship. One battleship was one unit, one chessman on the naval board. Not all famous leaders are likeable, as every world traveller knows. They all have the magnet.sm of force, which is quite another thing from the magnetism of charm. What the publio demans is that they shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are likeable and simple and human in the bargain and sailors besides —well, we know what that means. - Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe is not a great man. It is not for a civilian even to presume to judge. We have the word of those who ought to know, however, that he is. -'1 nope that he is, because I like to think that great commanders need not necesarily appear formidable. Nelson refused to be cast for the heavy part, and so did Farragut. It may be a sailor characteristic. I predict that after this war is over, whatever honours or titles they may bestow on him, the English are going to like Sir John Jellicoe not alone for his service to the nation, but for himself.

Admiral Jellieoe is one with Captain Jellicoe, whose cheeriness even when wounded kept up the spirits of the others on the Relief Expedition of Boxer days. "He could do it, too, ' one thought, having in mind Sir David Beatty's leap to the deck of a destroyer. Spare, of medium height, ruddy, and 57. So much for the health qualification which the Admiralty Lords dwelt upon as important. After he had been at sea for a year he seemed a human machine, much of the type of that destroyer, as a steel machine —a thirty-knot human machine, capable of 300 or 500 revolutions, engines running 6moothly, with no waste energy, slipping over the waves and cutting through them; a quick man; quick of movement, quick of comprehension and observation, of speech and of thought, with a delightful self-pos-session—for thoro are many kinds — .which is instantly responsive with decision. A telescope under his arm, too, as he received his guests. One liked that. He keeps watch over that Fleet himself wlnn lie* is on the quarter-deck. One had a feeling that nothing could happen in all his :range (of vision, stretching down the "avenues of Dreadnoughts" to the light cruiser squadron, and escape Irs attention. It hardly seems possible that he was ever bored. Everything around him interests him. Energy he has, electric energy m this electric age, this man chosen to command the greatest war product of modern energy. Fastened to the superstructure near the ladder to his quarters was a new broom which South Africa had sent him. He was highly pleased with that present; only the broom was/ Van I'romp's emblem, while Blake's had been the whip. Possibly the South African Dutchmen now fighting on England's 6ide knew that he already had the whip, and they wanted him te have the Dutch broom, too.

He had been using both, and many other devices, in his campaign against Von Tirpitz's "untersoe" boats, which was illustrated by one of the maps hung in his cabin. Quite different, this, from maps in a general's headquarters, with the front trenches and support and reserve trenches and the gun positions marked in vari-coloured pencillings. Instantly a submarine was sighted anywhere, Sir John had word of it, and another dot went down on the spot where it had been seen. In places the sea looked like a peppcr-box cover. Dots were plentiful outside the harbour where we were; but well outside, like flies around sugar which they could not reach. Seeing Sir John among his admirals and guests, one had a glimpse of the life of a sort of mysterious, busy brotherhood. I was still searching for an admiral with white hair. If there were none among these seniors, then all must be on shore. Spirit, 1 think, that is the word; the spirit of youth, of corps, of service, of the sea, of a ready, buoyant detiniteness —yew, spirit was the word to characterise theso leaders. Sir John moved from one to uuother in his quick way, asking a question, listening, giving a direction, his face smiling and expressive, with a sort of infectious confidence. "He is the man!" said an admiral. I mean, several admirals and captains said so. They seemed to liko to say it. Whenever he approached one noted an eagerness, a tightening of nerves. Natural leadership expresses itself in many ways; Sir John gave it a sailor's attractiveness. But I learned that there was stool under his happy smile; and they liked him for that, too. Watch out when It* is not smiling, and sometimes when lie is smiling, tl.ey say. For failure is never excused in that Fleet, as more than one commander knows. It is a luxury of consideration which the British nation cannot afford in time of war. The scene which oue witnessed in tho cabin of the Dreadnought flagship could not. have been unlike that of Nelson and his young contains on tho Victory, in the animation of youth governed with only one thought under the one rule that you must make good. Splendid as was the i-iglit of the power which Sir John directed from bis quarter-deck while the ships lay still l'r their plotted moor'ngs, it. paled beside that when (lie anchor chains hegan to rumble and, column by column, tliev took oil iife, and, slowly and majestically, gaining sliced mie after another turned toward the harbours entrance.