BRILLIANT ADMIRALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1916, Page 3

BRILLIANT ADMIRALS.

'*• 4 LOST L\ THE NAVAL BATTLE. Two brilliant flag officers perished 111 the great battle. Head-Admiral Hood was born ill 1870, so that lje was still a young ollicer, and it is of interest that his advancement was due as much to war service as to examination. He was a captain at thirty-two and a rearadmiral at forty-two. He was one of the Calliope's midshipmen at the time of the famous hurricane at Apia Specialising in gunnery, lie was appointed gunnery lieutenant of the Cambrian, in the Mediterranean, in 1805, and in 1898 he was selected to serve with the gunboats employed 011 the Nile during tlie Soudan operations. He was present at the battles of Atbara and Khar- • touni, and received mention in dispatches. This brought him promotion to commander eight years' seniority. In mOO lie was appointed to the Ramillies, Lord Charles Beresford's flagship in the Mediteranean, in which he continued to serve, under Rear-Admiral Burgcs Watson, until promoted to captain in January, 1903. As captain of the Hyacinth he landed in command of the naval brigade for the capture of the Mullah's stronghold at Illig in 1904, for which he was awarded the f).S.O. He afterward? commanded the Berwick. In 1907-8 he was Naval Attache at Washington, and, after a year in command of the battleship Commonwealth, he was made captain of Osborne College, where lie served from October, 1910, to January, 1013. At the tirn-e of his promotion to rear-admiral in May, 1913, he was commanding the battleship Centurion. He was Naval Secretary to the First Lord when the war broke out, and in October,'l9l4, he vacated the post to become admiral commanding the Dover Patrol. In the big battle he was in command of the Secend Battle-Cruiser Squadron. Read-Admiral Sir Robert Arkuthnot was Read-Admiral in the Second Battle Squadron in 1914, was fifty in March last, and entered the Navy in 1877. An officer of unbounding zeal, be came into prominence as the author of a "Commander's Order Book for a Mediterranean Battleship." Long before this, however, he had made his mark as a torpedo specialist. He was severely injured in a G-in gun accident in the Royal Sovereign in 1901. Promoted captain the following year, he was flag captain to Sir John Fisher at Portsmouth in 1903-4, and to his successor, Sir Archibald Douglas, for a short time in 1905. The Hampshire, cruiser, and Lord Nelson, battleship, were under his command from 1905 to 1910, and for the next two years he was commodore of destroyers in the Home Fleet, until promoted to flag rank in July, 1912. In the big fight he was evidently in command of the First Cruiser Squadron.

THE VALUE OF BATTLE-CRUISERS. There is evidently some discussion among the critics as to the value of the battle-cniiaer, in view of tlie suggestion that they failed to hold the German High Sea Fleet sufficiently long, to enable the battle fleet to get fully into action. Such a controversy was inevitable, for from the beginning owe school of experts had contended that too great a sacrifice had to be made in protection and hitting power so that high speed might be attained. Curiously enough, there was a time when critics of the popular order imagined that battle-cruisers might be used as commerce protectors. The German battlecruisers are more heavily armored than the British, for the Queen Mary had. a belt tapering from Din to 4in, whereas the Moltke and the Seydlitz have belts tapering from llin to [i.Oin. But the comparison on which the critics have insisted is between the battle-cruiser anil the battleship. The Queen Mary of 27,000 tons displacement had engines developing 75,000 h.p., her trial speed being over twenty-eight knots. She mounted eight 13.5-in guns as her main armament, and sixteen 4-in as secondary. The battleship Iron Duke may be taken for comparison. The displacement is 25,000 tons, the horse-power only 33,000 and the speed twenty-two knots. She mounts ten 13.5-in guns and sixteen fi-in. Moreover, her armor belt tapers fr«m 13.5 in to 4in. In order to attain the extra speed, therefore, the battle-cruiser had to be provided with engines enormously more powerful, she had to sacrifice hitting power and her protection was weaker.

It is not proposed here, of course, to enter into this controversy or even to qnote the views of the experts on either side. It is enough to know that the wisdom of spending great smns of money on battle-cruisers lias all along been questioned, the hostile critics contending that the money could be more profitably spent on battleships. The point that will appeal to the public, however, is doubtless that without the battle-cruiser squadrons the German fleet might not have been held at all. It would have been sighted, of course, by destroyers and scouts, but its action would have been with the smaller armored cruisers like the Defence and Warrior, which would have had 110 opportunity of inflicting damage on the capital ships. Another controversy concerning the battle-cruisers seems likely to develop. Some of the critics are apparently urging that Sir David Beatty committed an error of judgment in engaging the High Seas Fleet at close range, and that he ought to have withdrawn m face ot the superior force. Not until the full dispatches are published, however, will it be possible to offer any useful comment 011 that issue, because the accounts of the battle leave it in doubt whether Sir David did deliberately challenge the main German fleet. Having encountered the enemy, however, he was certain to take the risk of engaging him, even at close range, and on the information at present available one is bound to assume that he attempted to hold the Germans, to delay their retreat until the battleships came into the action. There is a hint that the battleships endeavored to work to the east of the enemy in order to get the advantage .of the light, and it goes without saying that Sir David Beatty would have hung to the Germans all night if by so doing he could bring them to full action with the Grand Fleet.