OVER THE NORTH SEA IN AN ARM CHAIR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 235, 15 December 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

OVER THE NORTH SEA IN AN ARM CHAIR.

By JANE ANDERSON

Miss Jane Anderson, the American writer, whose graphic description of looping the loop in an aeroplane over Hyde Park, London, will be remembered by readers, vividly narrates in the following article" her impressions of a flight in a seaplane over the North Sea.

Wtih the arms of a messroom chair for my arm rests, with maps, charts, and a signalling revolver on a narrow shelf before me, I made, in one of lus Majesty's seaplanes, a flight over the grey waters of the North Sea, and saw ,in a certain nameless harbour, a flotilla of Britain's destroyers—grey, splendid, powerful, true, and magnificent symbols of war. I am the firstwoman who has been permitted to see the hangars which house his Majesty s great fleet of the air; I 'am the first woman to make a flight in one of Britain's seaplanes, designed for war, created by war." After a long and picturesque description of her mount, and the preparations for departure, the \a via tress continues : "And we were circling down, volplaning toward one of the sliips, lower and lower. I saw the (Jack below me widen, saw at equal intervals the black guns, delicate points reaching out over the luetreless water. They seemed to lfe on the face of the sea- And then, on the deck, I saw something moving. Ic was only a little black dot. But this dot was a human being. It moved forward on the white oval, very very slowly. u lt was then. tJmt I realised, for some wholly inexplicable reason, the vqlue of tho co-ordination between the ships of the sea and the ships of the air. I saw, in some measure, how this new war has created new codes and laws of war. The planes are the eyes of the fleet. From this great vantage point the ships of the enemy are spread below them on a vast chart. Yes, it is new war. New and wonderful war. "In that flotilla of destroyers there was concentrated such limitless power of destruction that no man could estimate it. In that singularly innocent spectacle which was spretad out below me there was latent force sufficient to turn the tide of battle of such proportions that my imagination could in no wise encompass it. And this one flotilla, -which would on the morrow, perhaps, lie hundreds of miles from the wide harbour, was but one unit, one small unit, of Britain's navy. Ino longer marvelled at the miracle which lies in the simple fact that England has kept open, for two years of war. the waterways of the worM. "And I had seen this one evidence of Britain's naval efficiency from the unstable and uncertain messroom chair which had a trick of moving about and sliding around in a most awkward fashion when my pilot was banking, or whaling about, which ho did when we (had climbed up again to *a. good altitude above the harbour. It was this delicate, frangible affair of cloth and "(rood which was carrying us above the North Sea. Incredible I

"And down below us, little more than black marks on this face of the water, I saw two boats moving along sidte by side. They spread one widv> triangle of white in a double wake. We pased over them. They were two mine* sweepers, twin boats, at the beginning of thei rlong journey—one more evidence of the ceaseless vigilance with which England is keeping open the wide avenues of the sea. They neemed very small, three thousand feat below us, those diligent sweepers. Yet the labour they have done is the keystone of many, many things. The traffic of the ocean, the loading and unloading of cargoes in the docks of many countries, are a tribute to thei'' ceaseless coming and going. It is due ti them that the white hospital ships, bearing their great scarlet crosses amidships, bring in each day their ■precious freight. It is due to them and to the little patrol iboats which we could see making valiant headway bound on mysterious errands.

IN A REALM OF WONDER. "We were flying high above them. I wondered where they were going, in. to what forbidden reaches of the sea. on their endless quest, for the evil (spread by the enemy. For it is not easy wor kthey must do, keeping a great eoasbilne clear. In waters strewn with mines they must maintain an incessant watch; and because it 's new war, it is the menace under the ifea and over the sea which; is their concern—the submarines and the aircraft l>earing the emblem of the Kaiiser. jit is not easy work, this weaving back and forth of the little patrols.

" We pushed ahead to thi? shore, but, instead of turning and following the white line of the coost we flew on over the land. It was a narrow, green strip of earth, and we dropped down ■dose above it. I saw tlfla roofs of hangars and shops; I knew the splendid force of white and grey seaplanes ranged under those painted roofs, and I knew t]ie mirocles which were under way :, i the big shops. I had seen, in a like station the scope of the work which must be done, mil of the building and rebuilding in those sheds which were but one more product of .war. I'or those great buildings, in common with a thousand of their kind, had mushroomed up in a most magical fashion in the initial, chaotic days of preparation. And now they were no more than little numberless threads in the big fabric of it all. "'lt was when we started climbing (again that I looked ahead and saw for the first time the harbour which lav beyond the peninsula over which we were flying. It was wide, beautiful, with a deep shelving beach rising on one side. And there, at anchor, was the grov flotilla of destroyers. How small they looked down there—thc-*o fine ships in which is concentrated bo much of the moaning of war! Then we dropped toward them. They seemed to l*e rising to meet ns. T siw thorn taking outline against the surface r,f the sea. First there were the white marks of the decks, each one of them a slender oval ".villi a solid black contie amidships and a dark blot on the bow.

''Then in the black centres of the destroyers T saw the funnels. Thev were like round holes, three in each vessel. Tli-pi decks might 'have been cut from cardboard, shaped, with fine 01 swings to mark thns.i grave mysteries amidships. The destroyers did not seem to float above the water. They were level with it. Thev had form :nrl fine contour, but neither substance no* sdidity. However, the pilot eirci-'i the machine very prettiN, and down Mow T saw the great, grey flotilln advancing and turning in a most disconcerting way. For it seems, alwavs. taht it is the earth and the sea which are moving. The plane wms to re-t motionless, poTsed, lveautifully secure. "To me it was a splendid and marvellous thing that I had sven, from

one of his Majesty's fighting seaplanes, the great seal which Britain has set on that impregnable stronghold of her power, the North Sea." —New York "Tribune."