“Far Flung.. ”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 766, 12 September 1929, Page 6

“Far Flung.. ”

WORLD’S NAVAL BASES

Britain’s Many Havens

OOTTED methodically about the world in positions of the greatest strategic importance are the 25 naval bases on which Great Britain relies for the maintenance of the service fleets which protect her great trade routes. From stern Gibraltar in the North to Auckland in the South; from Jamaica in the West to Hongkong in the East—these bases are the havens and the sources of supply without which the British Navy could not patrol the oceans of the world.

The chief purpose of a naval base is to provide mobility for a battle fleet in areas of strategic importance. The cruising radius of the largest ships is limited to the distance they can steam without refuelling. Far removed from its source of supply, the best equipped fleet is helpless. The naval base, therefore, should be a deep-water port, supplied with ample fuel, with wharves and rqpair yards, with dry docks for complete overhauling and scraping, and a corps of experienced engineers, so situated with regard to trade routes and strategic centres as to provide increased mobility. In addition, from the military viewpoint, it should be defendable. THREE ISLAND BASES Judged by these standards, says an American writer, Great Birtain has no modern naval bases in the West Indies. Her possessions range from Bermuda in the North Atlantic to British Guiana in South America. Bermuda, Great Britain’s northernmost island possession, only 700 miles south-east of New York, took on importance as a naval station in 1&69, when a large floating dry dock was towed across the Atlantic and placed

in position at Inland Island, where the dock yard is situated. The island of Jamaica, commanding the approach to the Panama Canal, is of greater strategic importance, but its defences are not much more effective than are those of Bermuda, and its facilities and equipment are even less adequate. The harbour at Kingston admits the larger merchant vessels and the naval station is equipped with a fuelling base for warships.

Port Castries, the third of the Caribbean bases, is nothing more than an anchorage, without even a dry dock to lend it importance. Situated on St. Lucia, one of the small Windward Islands, it has no defences except a few small guns mounted during the war. British possessions in the other Windward and Leeward islands, in Barbadoes and Trinidad and the Bahamas, have no stations and no regular army troops.

If the British stations in tho Caribbean are of relatively minor importance, the reverse is true in other parts of the world. The great trade routes which link the British Dominions and colonies with the Mother Country are well dotted with modern depots, strategically located, to serve the British Navy. All in all, Great Britain has 25 naval stations which