TALES OF THE DOVER PATROL.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1919, Page 5

TALES OF THE DOVER PATROL.

ADMIRAL'S REVELATIONS. WAS ZEEBRUGGE A DISASTER! London, October 23. Reference has already bsen made in these columns to the revelations provided in Admiral Bacon's history of "The Dovar Patrol," which, after running serially in the London Telegraph, has now made its appearance in book form, at a price, alas! that rules out purchase save by those whose pockets are well-lined —34s to wit. Yet it is "a book for the millions" from a British point of view, and especially at this juncture when the loud insistent sliout3 for "economy" seem likely to dvown all the warning notes uttered by those who, viewing the millenium as something still afar off, and the League of Nations through sceptical eyes, are convinced that a strong Navy is still essential to the well-being of the Empire.

There are plenty of thrills —some of them of the uncomfortable variety—in the Admiral's book. If you suddenly learned that at our most vulnerable point, in some of the most critical moments of the late war, Great Britain was being guarded by two men and a boy, armed with two pop-guns, one of which was away for repairs, you will understand what is meant. And the one fact that "sticks out a mile" beyond others is that "The Dover Patrol" is the very gate of England, from which every man and every ton of food and material required for the fighting line in France was for months and months on end "protected" by a few odds and ends of more or less obsolete vessels, because, for a jhance that never came, our naval strength was husbanded at Scapa. UNARMED OUTPOSTS. Admiral Bacon, however, is a sailor, and ready to carry on cheerfully and improvise with two men and a boy, if my lords of the Admiralty could spare him nothing more. But his facts are startling. How splendidly he was served by his men he is eager to tell:—"The men were mostly plain fisher-folk; the vessels ordinary fishing craft. The little drifter —with the armament of a single rifle and a few rounds of ammunition —who used to accompany us on our bombardments, and be shelled with apparent enjoyment, had crews of hardy fellows who were seamen in the truest sense. Often they stood unarmed at outposts in the Straits of Dover, with neither gun to fight nor speed to avoid the German destroyers. The trawlers, with their brother fishermen, swept for mines at the rate of 250 miles a day, and during the first three years of the war swept a total distance equivalent to twelve times round the earth! These men saw their comrades blown up, and yet went on steadily and unfalteringly with their duties."

THE PET MONITOR. Of regular Navy boats—except for monitors, of whose navigating eccentricities the Admiral tells some amusing stories—there were tew:—"The interesting feature is the phenomenally email force of destroyers with 4in. guns in the patrol. For two years four was the greatest number available, and once "we were reduced to r single 4in. gun destroyer to hold the Straits, with a dozen or more German boats barely 60 miles away, ,eaeh superior in armament to our tiogU

boat." But Admiral Bacon nutda Ik* hStjj of things—and what a good but it mu we can realise now, when we kncnr tor* much he did with such inadequate means.The cheery spirit in which he writes tq illustrated by a description of-the jno&i* tors that were entrusted to him. The •'Marshal Ney" was a special "petf't"*- 1 "Her engines not infrequently exploded when asked to start, her engine roan was scarred as if by shrapnel from the fragments of burst cylinder heads, and the escapes of the engine-roofi staff wan miraculous. . . When they did bunt they usually did not start, and when once started no one liked to stop for fear of not being able to start them again." It was when a new captain had her in a gale in mid-Channel, and she was doing everything but steer, that the Admiral wirelessed to cheer him up, "The Marshal Ney usually navigates the Witera of the patrol sideways." The cajp* tain's reply ig not recorded. BLUFF. '

Unable with the forces at hia disposal to fight, the enemy as his heart desired most fervently, Admiral Bacon wis reduced to bluffing them, and 1m sosse v amusing stories to tell of this:—"To give the enemy a fright, and to giva a wakeful night to several thousand map, X Mftt: Commander Evans with two snail tot-I pedo bpats'off Ostend to fire two bejoquats of 100 Tockets each to give the militaty command something to think about" This is merely one instance; really the patrol was playing a game of bluff more or less all through the piece—at any rate • during Admiral Bacon's conqoand. Happily for us and for our Allies, the «tmy never thought otherwise, and had not the pluck to test his theory whatever it was. Had he done so ——-f

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. One of the moßt interesting chapter* ig the Admiral's book deala with the plaqp elaborated for the landing of the tint Division on the Belgian coast in 1917. Htf \ after day we in England were regaled with tales of such a landing having bees made until we began to think that th» stories had been deliberately set afloat by our own pepole in order to bamboozle the enemy into weakening some part Of his lines elsewhere. But we know Aow that the landing was not only planned, but was made the subject of elaborate re* hearsals. Huge pontoons, which in reality 2!>00 ton ships, were constflicted, the ccheme contemplated the landing ol 16,000 men in twenty minutes. A replica of the Middlekerke sea wall that would have to be tackled was set up in France, and tanks were taught to climb it Admiral Bacon gives a vivid account of the landing as it was to have been, but our troubles on the Passchendaele Ridge made the proposed combined attack impossible, and the scheme was never brought off. After assuming that the plans for running the huge pontoons (laden with troops, guns, and tanks) end on to shore had been Bafely accomplished, and that the monitors were keeping the German shore batteries amused, he continues:—"One yell, and the first 400 troops burst ashore. The tanks began to move. Then a tense excitement; the tracks gripped, the tanks climbed. . . A flood of troops swarmed over the wall, and the action began. As soon as the troops were clear, carts", gun limbers, and sledges to move off the pontoons. . . . Such is the description of what was hoped would happen; but, alas, it never cams off!"

{ffiEBRUGGE A DISASTER Wo are accustomed to look upon the famous attack at Zeebrugge as a particularly brilliant naval exploit. The plans for the operation against this place and Ostend were all worked out whilst Admiral Bacon held the Dover command, though the actual operations were carried out by his successor. The Admiral has much to say on the plans, and something on the operations, In his view the operations were disastrous. His comment is:—"lt is impossible to have a bet* ter example of how want of experience wrecked a scheme. . Instead of this operation, the last naval operation of the war, being a model, a model, the Mole landing was a disaster; and Ostend, after pur having patrolled close to it for nearly a year and a half, was not found on the only occasion when it was really necessary." Allowance must of course be made for the feelings of a man suddenly superseded alter he had made the plans for these attacks, but the Admiral certainly gives us food for reflection upon the real nature of What we were led to believe were "naval triumphs" of the first order.