THE NAVY AT WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 December 1917, Page 3

THE NAVY AT WORK.

SECRET OF ITS GREAT STRENGTH. Occasionally one is allowed a glimpse of the Navy at work, and occasionallv a glimpse of the Grand Fleet itself, there was ail account of a visit to the Grand Fleet in the Melbourne Herald a week or so from the pen of Mr. Murdoch, :ts London correspondent, and, though it is not permitted to correspondents to be very explicit, the article is by no means lacking in interest. The Grand Fleet *was in harbor. "It lies jidly at anchor, swinging on the tide, p.nd yon wonder at the daily miracle by which these .few ships, which would be comfortably tucked into Mosman Bay. shield the whole vast life find wealth of the free world," Mr. Murdoch •writes. "More guns can be seen on a day's journey along the British front.. More ships could be seen at Mudros Harbor at its worst, or in the Port of London at its best. It is peculiarly unconvincing. This fleet is the most mysterious and awful war force in the world. Yet even this port makes it look small. How much smaller is it on the vast oceans it dominates! Here the surroundings make you remember that 3hips are small, and and land Immense. Lovely wooded and turfed and heather hills rise above the fleet. leaden grey waters of the great harbor absorb its own battle-grey. Its steam pinnaces and motor-boats and destroyers racing hither and thither seem the smallest of f-mall fry. Even the super-Dreadnoughts look mere lines of decks, all very low in the water, and very quiet. There is no pomp about it, to-day. The men's washing is strung up to the masts, and the guns are pointing at all angles, more rakish than menacing. "Yet, in its very unimpressiveness, as it lies at anchor, is the secret of the Grand Fleet's strength. The Empire could collect here an Armada of_.stag. serins size. It does not, because in short eight or ten vears—particularly in the last feverish three years—it has built a new fleet, that makes everything else useless. Sir David Beatty does not clutter up his various homes with old things, nor does he embarass his movements bv long trains of supply vessels; and so these, few battleshins and battlecruisers. with their waspish destroyers aird scout leaders, make up the nreat striking force. There is more in plentv of course. But these semi-submerged, relatively few ships are the real Grand Fleet, and it is beeau.se we learnt to count our striking shins in tens instead hundreds. . . . The hone of decis-

ivo battle cxnlains much of tlio sight before mo. Those semi-submersed monsters fire semi-submerged because they are ready: they have full steam or.ing because they five rentlv; thov lie in line of battle horo in or<lor to bo quite ready. A r-illl would lalce them to soa in a few minutes. Thov would find their way through minefields, booms and anti-sub-marine nets would open to let. them nans, patrol boats which now protect them perfectly from submarines would senrc have time to cheer them as they swept, by. Sir David Boattv has his vholo (loot dominated by this possibility of action. He has rehearsed it, in sections. time and again. He has never let the crews forget, that, they arc a blue water fleet, afloat, constantly at. ;;ca. real eomandcrs of the ocean.'" "Much of what is here cannot be written about," Mr, Murdoch continues, "but I mav be allowed to picture the newnavy as it looks in its everyday dross. Its strength is still, of course, in its battleships, and amonsr these there or® many new ones, which are the most .vorkmanlike-looking of all, ivit.li little to show in the way of funnels and masts, but much in the way of frowning guns. These and the other battleships lie in long lines, and at the head in Beatty's flagship, whose name I may not mention. Not far away are submarines; in the construction of which we are doing great things—far greater than the Germans; and hereabouts also are the newest destroyers, which are seldom in any home, because they love the broader seas so much. Queer fish they look. Rome v with so little on their backs that they look all front, and if you walked behind the diminutive low-cut funnels while they steamed, you would have all your clothes burnt off in a moment. And their torpedoes go far—and go with accuracy, as many German ships found to their cost at Jutland. There arc new ships of all kinds here—some in groups, some only in specimens. For all new ;ships are not battle-action ships. Many are commerce protectors or only wonderful new patrollers. Of the famous "Hush" ship, which has strange secrets, land has done strange things, and will do stranger still if the Huns offend it, no- | thing can be said."