The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1917. SWEEPING THE SEAS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 26 January 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1917. SWEEPING THE SEAS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

A dozen, more or less, German warships have met with fatal misfortune. Survivors, and the German naval authorities explain that the ships were merely moving from a port where they wore being frozen in, and likely to hecome helpless targets for British big

guns, to a German port nearer the Arctic, where there would be no such danger. ■ As the vessels wore steaming a southerly course, and wore just at the entrance to the Dover Straits, a LVitish midget flotilla found them and did their hest to put them on the right course. It seems that the German commander had made a very grave error, or that his instructions were being read topsy turvey. These Huns are remarkably simple-minded, unsophisticated people, of such doubtless veracity that it would be cruel to put a wrong interpretation on what they state. They were looking for a place where they would not he frozen in; where there was less likelihood of being set in ice than at Zeebrugge, and, although it was not just the place they desired, the British sea dogs who found them wandering" were good enough to despatch them to where they would never experience ice again. One can scarcely believe that those poor, simple German sailors had lost their way, and were going full steam for British communications with France instead of steering for an ice-free German port, in the opposite direction. Instantly they saw British destroyers they came to their senses, or, at any rate, scented danger, for they smartly aboutcd ship and taxed the stokers' art to an extreme to get to the northward in the shortest time possible. In fact, they admit they had no idea that British ships were about till shells began to knock -holes in their craft, which rather goes to indicate that heir source of information had served ■-hem a dirty trick. There were twelve ' r fourteen German ships involved, and is there are only two the British have • t yet accounted for, it was a fairly clean sweep. It is at least, a lesson to Germany that she must not allow :ny meandering about the seas while :here is a possibility of those hated British sailors being in close proximity. In reading the later reports of tvhat took place, it. seems that this Hun sea mission was not quite so free from artifice as. the frozen harbour ~'ory would have ns believe. The -arJie-if news to reach the land was hvr-T-'.'i'V :-, - :-n rescued Germans. " r - "' ' r '*w: words indicate that they '-•cvo out for a fiiht: as they an-

novmced "A severe German defeat." There is not much in this statement, but it entirely dissipates the idea of just moving from one port to another. The British were too clever for them: they say they were quickly surrounded and there was little hope of escaping. Ten German ships went to the bottom of the sea with short uot : ce, and at least one other was dragged by Dutch fishermen to a Dutch pore in a sinking condition. With the German narrative, in which it is stared that they had been severely defeated, It seems apparent that the Dutch newspapers truthfully stated the ease in saying, "German destroyers of trie sixth division of the Home Fleet from Heligoland, which intended to make a raid, but were discovered, and the greater part of them driven from their base, while a portion were forced to

run against the Flemish coast, some have refuged in Zeebrugge." Dutch newspapers make the clear, unequivocal statement that the ships were a part of the German home fleet from Heligoland, which intended to make a raid. They did not come from Zeebrugge, but they had got so far south, so near the entrance of the English Channel, so intoxicatingly near as to be almost within striking distance of British communications, that they were glad to fly to Zeebrugge when surprised by British destroyers. The story of risking a whole fleet of destroyers or torpedoers at once in shifting port is not convincing. The ships were part of the German home fleet; bent on raiding British communications; they ran into a trap set by British tars and were very promptly indeed consigned to the sea bottom. Germany knows that a big thing is

brewing in France; that there is a continuous stream of British ships carrying guns, munitions, and men to the selected battlefield, and her War Councils decided to -hazard all the possibilities in endeavouring- to make Britain believe that her communications could not be relied upon. British alertness and alacrity has undoubtedly removed any such hope i" the Hun breast. Other means of delaying the fall of the "Sword of Damocles" must be sought. The German High Admiral did not realise the full truth of his statement when Tie said "it would be heroic madness" for the German fleet to seek battle with the British Navy. Our sailors have contributed the sort of evidence that is likely to remove any doubts.