THE BRITISH FLEETS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1916, Page 6

THE BRITISH FLEETS.

MORE POWERFUL THAN BEFORE. THE HONORABLE SCARS OF JUTLAND. VISIT TO THE NEW ZEALAND. (From Capl-ain Malcolm Ros?, War Correspondent with lie New Zealand Forces). I awoke suddenly in the dim light of early morning, and'thought 1 « a man climbing 'over the parapet. I rubbed my eyes, and found that it was only ray tunic and "slacks." crowned with niy hat. all on tlic- cue peg end swinging to the motion of a sleeping car on the Highland railway. I raised the blind, and the scene viuon which I looked was not the broken brown earth and dismembered trees of ti.r Somme battlefield. The trees were lir trees, and not at all like the elm* and poplars of Fieardy. And the fields, too, were different. They wer-i hemmed with hedges, and black-faced sheep were grazin;,' contentedly in the:r pastures. Later we ran through wilder scenery than anything you can find in Northern France. The rivers ran swift and strong, their Ranking hills clothed with heather. Autumn had already si.-'nshed with her lavish brush the woodland foregrounds, and, to make the contrast the greate. winter had whitened the background whh a Hi in snow coating. With a whir a covey of grouse ros_> iron: n lnte oatIk id. We climbed the pass to Culloden' Moor, where we picked heather half in bloom and half in seed.

That night I slept in a gi eat. room in ar. inn in the Far North, fiom which, almost, you can see {lie comings and goings of the Grand Fleet. I had come, straight from the battle zone of the Sc-nime-—by ear across miles of Northern France, by boat across rhe Channel, by train through London, and so on here. Next morning ( was eu board a destroyer steaming at thirty km Is an hour out to tlie I leet. All this 1 had done without let or hindrance, even without discomfort. Cr.c thing was clear. The \Xv.r Lord had not yet reaped the fruits of his victory (!) wlven, in the words of'our Admiral, en 31st May, 11) IG, the f.Vrnwi; High Sea F.ect "was brought to acticr. to the westward of the Jutland Bank, off the ccast of Denmark." THE GREAT GJiKY FLEET. Til days of peace one ha;' seen the Bine Fleet steaming majestically past the Firth of Forth in the game it had to play with the Red Fleet. ' That was a .wonderful sight. It pave one a sense of majesty and of enormous .pewor. But nh that one saw then f.wiriuleir in comparison with the Great Grey Fleet as it exists to-day. A g impse of the Grand Fleet, with all its. attendant auxiliaries, is, in spite of the Kfise r 's boast, a thrilling sight. It is, ;,' course, a great privilege to see it at aii. And the privilege is none the less because, there is so much about it that cannot b'? mentioned. It is the last word—or very near the Inst word—in naval construction and n2val gunnery. No sooner had we settled ourselves in the more or less sheltered spots available on that part of the destroyer that fr by courtesy called a deck than we v. ere invited on to 11.e bridge. Here a signalman, with a ehlriring iron Venetian blind that screened a flaming arc light, was already te-'ing the hidden Fleet all it needed to know about us. He was not talking dir.-ct,- to the Flag, but to an intermediary in the shape of a grim headland. An; the headland repl;ed with steely fla-his—flashes that made the daylight pa!". With her grey funnels hlisieied by the heat of her hidden oil fires, and her mass of top hamper ind gcir and guns and tubes that seemed to be. piled haphazard on board, our destrcyer cut a giaceful curve in the. vnter, and went racing on through a swirling rip towards the boom that guarded tlie, Great Grey Fleet. A foam.'ng wave curved from her bow on either side Her speed was such that on a calm day you found yourself in a strong wind.

The stem scenery of the Far North seemed a fitting set* ng fo." the scene that was soon to burst upon our gaze. Outside the boom thoi-sanels of fluttering gulls and tern were lruk'ng a breakfast of the fish that are checked there. There i- little other fishing row. The sturdy Highlanders and Islanders who were wont to sweep the tideways for the harvest of the sea are diagging bigger nets for bigger fish farther afield, and dragging them to some purpose as' the War Lord too well known. They are scattired acress the seas of cthei lands.—

From (he dim shieiiug and the misty Island Mountains divide them; and a world of seas; But still the blood is strong, the blood is Highland, And they in dreaa.s heboid the Hebrides. True it is not the Hebrides to which \\s have come, but the sentiment is the same. These of them who remain are quiet, thoughtful, frugal, well-read men. lliey have few bookc._ 'ju( such as they have are good books, and they know thtm well. There are men here who have sent their sons to success in the outermost confines of the Empire. They have carved new homes ; ;i the forests of the New Lands, they have made new and successful ventures in Industry and Commerce, and they hsuc been preachers and leaders of the Bar and even Prime Ministers as far away as the Antipodes. They make fine sailors, and you win find them in the Fleet on the North Sea. and the Aegean, and in tlie trciehes in Pieardy ar.d Flanders. You ci'.n tell them by their talk and by their strong faces—they are men of the breed. The old Norse words persist tc this day in their vocabulary. But it is not by thec 'alone that the Fleet is manned. Tlieie are in this Gieat Grey Fleet al;.o tne best of the English race. On the quarter-deck of some of the biggest sVips to-day you can shake hands with direct descendants of Drake and Grenvillr. On the lower deck you can hold converse with men from the South Devon men—who will teli you that the strjuge beating in the air that comes to England now on calm days across the Channel i.~ Drake's Drum srunding once more ia presage of victoiv. " THE SHIP AND IBE GUNS. And so we sweep through the boom, ar.d swing slowly round a promontory that reveals the long lirifs ot the Great Grey Fleet. It is a glorious morning, with sunlight, and a distant haze, and the lanes and streets of, ships I'acje away between grey water and grcv mist. Steamiut majestically, through"* narrow en-

hance comes a lir.e of battleships* Through the glass ycu can pick out the lirge armor-plated turrets, and the jut. ting muzzles of their Jung guns. Great tripod masts of steel give them an unwonted look. You gaze spell bound as the huge masses of (killing nice! come en with an enormous sense of power, yet villi the ease and grace of a t-wau swimming in a garden pool. You miss the old straight masts and Ihe heavy oldtime spars, and some people with a'n artistic pose lament ;',e;r 10.-;-. but the iicdern tripod with its three thin steel yards crossing a thin smei mast, high above the bridge ami the ova) funnels, has a beauty of its own Not all the poetry has gone with the advent of the age of steel. Since the sb.ties there heve been vast stride- - made. Noting all this and much more, we have still time to glance round along the- streets and lanes of floating steel upon which we have so suddenly come. Away on the left three leadcn'-eolored destroyers with the oil and smoke coming from their short squat funnels, are already under way.' They have seen the oncoming of the b.g ships, and. have n.e.rked them as their prey. With wonderful celerity they have got up a high speed and come racing past ir- in line in a welter of foaming iea. The water foams up to their hawse-pipes and spreads a great white weke far.wise(bchind. Nearing the big ships- they titrn, manoeuvre agam into line, and pass on. It is a beautiful movement seer, in daylight; but it is meant, to be a deadly night attack, and long before the destroyers have passed the battleships a second time, one 01 more would have l.fui at the bottom of the sea.

Armor plating, the steam turbine, and oil fuel have done much for the modern ship of war. I boarded one such ship—the latest of the kind.—and after her alt the other ships seemed of lestei interest, excepting, of course, those that had on tl'tm the honorable scars of the Jutland Battle. One watched with fascinated interest the flaming 01'. cf h<r furnaces fill below in a clear, ceo! atmosphere, well ventilated and marvelled at the ponderous ease villi which her grcai

guns and turrets worked at th? behest of one man. That mail with the pressure of u thumb and finger, can send .two thousand pounds of forged steel charged with high-explosive tearing through the air on to the deck ol an enemy ship ten miles away Insicie the huge turret you stand ygape-at the almost diabolical movements and the clang and rattle of machinery as the great loading tray comes up from the bowels of the ship with the enormous shell, and :, clattering, bending chain rummer pushes jt home.. The propelling charge is sent home more quietly, the tremendous breach swings easily on its hinges, pushes ir- nose into the gun. and locks. Then the gun is fired and tlie huge mass of metal comes dashing back with the recoil, only to rifiimc, more slowly, its former position in readiness for the whole performance to be repeated again smd again. You are standing level with t'je marine artilleryman who is or, the gun p'atform, and he, 'in the intervals of noise trom this roaring loom of destruction, is cairying on a ci'rvcr.'-ation with you. "I suppose old So-and-So," lie says, "is still footling about Portsmouth." 'J hen there is a touch on a lever and, as the long barrel :,f the gun goes skyward, he and his platform disappear into the dim recesses below. Another touch en the. lever and lie comes up. It is your opportunity to r:vc him his answer r.of'ire he does' his disappearing trick again. One might write .1 preat deal about the things one sf-.w and heard in this shi;.. hut the writing would neve,' }<■■ published—at all events in war-time. As a junior lieutenant said: "We ?re not giving away picture po'.teards of this shipnot just yet."

THE. MAN AND HIS MESSAGE. On the flagship we v. t.rj- weieomed by a short, alert man with a kindly smile on I-is face and a telescope under his arm. He is the man at whose Iv-ddmg the great grey fleet gf|es out through i'-.? gateways. There is not mistaking who he is. We know him at a glance. He ii the Nelson of to-day, and the whole fleet has a supreme confidence in his judgment and his ability. He is n typically modest sa'lor, and be wouln net thank me for s.iying more,thai: this about him. At luncheon afterwards we asked him for a message to the Overseas Dominions, and his reply was typical of the man. "You ask me for a to the Dominions," he said. "Well, all I would say to them is 'Go on ss you have begun.'" We left his ship lo visit others, and everywhere there was the same tale of readiness and efficiency. On the Warspite the men pointed to the honorable wounds of the Jutland fight and told taies.of the fighting, half cf whir.h cannot yet he published. Hcaied and patched in the dockyard, lhe ; e t.ounds are now siarcely noticeable. .I'iiu Wir Lord told l.is credulous people nee! tie people of ether nations that le had sent her to the bottom of the sea But she is not one whit the worse lor the War Lord's powder, and at any moment is ready as ever to take her place v.\ the line when the German fleet comes out again

A GIFT SHIP, When the people of the farthermost Dominion gave the battle-cruiser New Zealand to the Navy they little dreamt that in a few shorl' je-ars she would have such battle bonois blazoned on her steel. "HeligGhuid. August, 1014." "Dogger Bank. Jaiiuaty. 1P15" ",'luv land, May, 1916," are battle honors that Mill remain on ships of that name so long as the Empire slends. At another base in which long lines (f ships stretched into ibe morning mists 7 found the New Zealand. As our destroyer sped up between th'- lines of battle cruisers tiie roar of Bril'di cheering came across the pint id waters, and loking ahead v e saw the boats' crew? of two ships straining at their oars in the finish of a race. New Zealand had won. It was their second win that day in a contest between crews of the Ist 'Battle Cruiser Squadron. "New Zealand" has had great luck in being in three battles anl in coming through almost scathless. Late-- in the da} I' boarded her, and noted that she had the Lritish ensign painted on hei foretop. She of all ships, there'eie, cannot strike her colors—not thr.t any other ship in the Navy would do so. On her foretop, too, there is painted the tattooed head of a Maori chief. This is the mascot cf the ship, and to this her sailors attribute her good luck. At the time of my visit siie was being repainted, but the head of the chieftain was not touched, "If it is painted out you can bet' j our life it wiil soon k: painted in again," said her comcander. On her deck is a great chunk of steel, placed so that ail msy see it. It was pinched out of the glacis o: one of her turrets by a German shell that catm. aboard, but did no other damage. It is a treasured memento cf the greatest naval battle in history. The New Zealand's part in the fight, even so far as it can be told now, is ■in,t,ere"stj«j Tie Fleet jvju^^iHgiins

along on a normal cruise, and it is quite certain that neither fleet knew that the other was out. The last thin* anyone was thinking about was battk On New Zealand the officers were at allcrnoon lea, when suddenlv the call came ''To Action!" They thought it rather a bore—the usual bailie practice they thought. One lieutenant said: "I in damned if I go up until I've finished my tea." Lui, this time it was tlie real thing, and, by the time he had gn.i:c(l the deck, tv/o enemv cruisers were reported in sight. Within a few ni'iiiites the action had actually begun, but at very long range. lii a few minutes mare Indefatigable was hit by the second salvo i'rtir, an enemy ship mi blew up. Hur p,\ket boat could be seen turning over and over in the air five hundred feet up. New Zealand til! then had been tiring nt the fourth ship in the enemy lin ; >. f<he had now to alter her fire to the last ship. Before this she had fired four or five salvoes, and had "straddled" her first opponent. In other words, she had put one short and the other over, and the chances were that - with her next, she would | lave hit. When she wf.s firing at the last ship she got very little reply, so presumably sne had got hrr shots on to her right' away, but owing the haze shi could not make certain of this. She was practically firing at the flashes of the enemy's guns in the mist, and cniy occasionally could the ships be seen. Eighteen minutes after Indefatigable blew up those on board New Zealand saw Queen Mary disappear. Tiger plunged inte her black smoke, and was in darkness for about ten seconds. New Zealand swerved and passed part of Queen Mary's hull sticking up cut of the water. When New Zealand was hit, the piece of steel punched out i.y the shell fell on to tlie working parts of the- turret and it was stopped, but only for twenty minules and the ship probably fired more rounds than any other ship 'in the battle.