A VISIT TO THE GRAND FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 November 1916, Page 2

A VISIT TO THE GRAND FLEET.

■» WONDERFUL NEW LEVIATHANS. ■J GERMAN TRANSPORTS BURNT TO J THE WATER'S EDGE. J (By Alfred Novas). To spend time in naval bases, meeting men who are constantly looking into the realities of things, and who know what is on. and something of what is intended, much is heard of Bin-passing interest. The mine-sweepers keep clearing passages along which the great armada can drive safely, and drive always at full speed, and those passages leadsomewhere. A busy autumn and a much busier winter are expected by the fleet. Statesmen have assured the public of the steady growth of our Navy, and, if in the first 22 months of war there was an impressive increase, the additions to our sea power since the Jutland battle have been positively stupendous. Tli< great naval combat provided an ample measure to the capabilities of the German Navy as an antagonist, and revealed' its weakness for the purposes of offence', with the result that there is now appearing on the seas ocular evidence that the practical experiences obtained in that battle, apart altogether from the material destruction » achieved, threw such a flood of light upon the Imperial High Seas Fleet as to ' enormously reassure us of the absolute safety of the defences of this country. 1 What evidence the surface of the sea is providing in this connection must be left, so far as the public are concerned, in the realms of conjecture; we are permitted, on occasion, to say a little—only a very ' little—about the patrols, the mine-sweep-ers, or the submarines, but when it comes to the Grand Fleet the iron burs are clamped upon information. Suffice it ' that the Jutland fight at one stroke demonstrated Germany's invasion plans of ' Great Britain nugatory, and sailors are confident that THE GERMAN DREAM. of invasion of Great Britain was utterly \ shattered in the Jutland fight. One I story was to the effect that five German transports, crammed with picked Prussian soldiers, were burned to the water's edge. In selecting the first week of June for their only real adventure on the blue water, Germany was possibly dom- . inated by the circumstance that the limit of time had. come for risking an engagement with the British Fleet. To emerge for battle was a desperate venture at 7 any time. Their submarines and mines 5 had nofimpaired our strength, and, with 2 an eye on the British shipyards, they - knew' the "throbbing" Clyde and. Tyne, 3 from June onwards, would begin to 5 make wondrous contributions to the bat--1 tie line, and every week the already 2 gigantic task therefore assumed more 1 formidable proportions. That was a situation students of the naval battle did not appreciate at the time, but now, . when we see the majestic newcomers,. j and hear the wonders of their construc--5 tion, .it is realised how more remote and J remote recedes the comparative naval 3 power of the enemy. The experiences '■■ of* Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank ; . are embodied in the new ships new in 9 commission; Jutland Bank will place its t> mark on those now on the slips. The civilian, when he learn 3 about the marvels of a battleship, is not slow to ex--1 press his admiration; the sailor is long l familiar with the Dreadnought, and, aci customed to its wonders, makes little res ference to the extent of the armament, s but when these very sailors who treat J Dreadnoughts with indifference speak 3 with awe of the new boats now in the s British lines, an index can be had to the e fighting power the latest arrivals control '• and the secrets of construction they contain. The German timed his effort well —he, at all events, did not believe in G strikes in the British dockyards, and 6 was well aware that if in pre-war days 9 we took two and a-lialf years to build 0 our Dreadnoughts, we are turning them out quicker now. So that is why the German navy faced our guns and gambled on its chances in early June, and & gambled in vain. 1 ° ' ' ZEPPELIN SCOUTS WARY. 0 5 Men on the patrol service teil many curious stories of the behaviour of Zeps., who now act as if they were stricken with panic. A trawler was ''firing up," and emitting thick black smoke, when a Zop. came along. The trawler never tired a shot, hut the Zep., taking fright at the heavy smoke from the funnel, threw out all its bombs, which exploded within less than a mile of the trawler, and then the airship turned east and ! hooked it back home. Zeppelins coming from Germany always fly very low—not three or four hundred feet up—until ' they .spot some of the outer patrol. Then they rise-. The German airship l flies low in order to make out our boats, for when an airship gets thousands of feet up not only does it assume to the ' observers below the proportions of a cigar, but a patrol boat from the skips looks no bigger than a match. The Zep. j must watch our patrol with a vigilant j eye, for the high-angle guns spurt menacingly near, and it must be r. ncivetesting experienvo with three or four forms of deatli lurking within ov.-ry shot that splutters. 1 The exploits if the Deutsch'nnd are ) the subject of little comment amongst naval men. "She had 5000 miles of sea surface to hide in; the sea isn't p. little place, and she did not do very much in 3 dodging us with her spoonful of cargo. That is only one ship the Germans havo got out and home. 1 was lying f.tf Flamr borough Head, and, just to interest myi self, counted the ships that passed north . or south in three hours. There were 150 in that little time." 1 : =3 l