WITH THE NAVY.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1921, Page 9

WITH THE NAVY.

HOW WE NEARLY LOST THE W AR. BY AN OBTUSE ADMIRALTY. THE TRUTH COMING OUT. A FASCINATING STORY OF THE SEA. London, May 13. “The debate in the House of Lords regarding the Naval War Staff raised issues of the utmost national importance. It was the result of certain grave disclosures made by Mr. Filson Young in his book, ‘With the Battle Cruisers.’ His statements have since been generally confirmed in the House of Commons. They showed that for want of an efficient brain—such as a staff should be—to use an admirable weapon we nearly lost the war at sea.” —Daily Mail. “About nothing that went at all wrong in the naval war did the Admiralty tell the truth; and one danger of that system is that the untruth becomes material for history, and is somehow believed just beause it is official.” •—Filson Young.

MR. YOUNG AND LORD BEATTY.

“Mr. Filson Young's ‘With the Battle Cruisers’ (Cassell, 25s net), is a book of a very rare and notable kind, written by one who combines wide knowledge of naval matters with personal participation in tremendous events, and a complete mastery of our noble language. It gives an inspiring account of Lord Beatty at his work and his play, in manoeuvres and in battle,” writes Mr. H. W. Wilson in the Daily Mail.

“For six months—from November, 191-f, to April, 1915—the author served in the Lion on Lord Beatty’s personal staff, in the Intelligence Department, and he was present at the mysterious of the Dogger Bank. He tells us what are the sensations of the excivilian who suddenly becomes a living target of giant guhs, ‘miserably cold and rather frightened,’ in the Lion’s foretop. “Mr. Filson Young secured his appointment by a stratagem, bending even Lord Fisher to his purpose at a moment when he wrote that he was ‘exceeding busy scrapping parasites.’ “The world is the gainer by Mr. Young's brilliant adventure, and when circumstances carried him away from the Fleet he received this parting testimonial from his friend Lord Beatty, of which he may well be proud: “ 7 shall miss you; it was refreshing to have someone to talk to who was not. of the Navy, and your advice was good.”

THE REAL BEATTY. “The real Beatty as he appears in these pages is not merely a dashing leader who trusts to luck, but something very much more: “ ‘His caution and his sense of responsibility were just as remarkable as his enterprise; but they were never allowed to obscure or dominate the fighting spirit.... Perhaps the greatest tribute one can pay to him and the navy is to say that in the qualities in which he proved supreme he was not exceptional but typical.’ “His ideas as expressed in tafiks with his future historian before • the war were:

' “‘To work his people hard while they were at work, and chase them off to recreate and enlarge their minds when work was over.... strategy and tactics... .might each be summed up in a sentence: One, to get at the enemythe other, to destroy him or lead him to destruction. Beatty’s ideal squadron would have turned and manoeuvred and- fought like one man without a word from the flagship; and onoe it had got its teeth in an enemy it would never have let go as long as one of them remained above water.’ “In its greatest battle is was true to this doctrine; all the afternoon and early night that squadron with dwindling forces and fearful losses continued in action at Jutland against the whole German Fleet; and,-though bruised and bleeding and shattered, it did not let go. STRATEGY OF JUTLAND. “Mr. Young quickly made the discovery that (in opposition to what the official histories are telling us) the Navy was ill prepared:

“ ‘There not seem to be any definite policy at a 11.... There was no organised hunting for submarines because we had not got the light craft to hunt with.'... As for mines, we had none # worth the name.... It was quite dear that • the Commander-in-Chief’s (Lord Jellicoe’s) principal anxiety was to protect his fleet from danger.... On November 3. ... he took his fleet out to the westward of Galway Bay, thus placing two islands and a couple of seas between himself and the enemy.’

‘‘ln his tactics ‘the same attitude of mind seemed to be observable.’ In manoeuvres bet ween him and Beatty. Beatty launched destroyer attacks at him.

“‘To avoid which he invariably employed the method of turning his ships awaj. I remember 4-hat the first time I saw this happen from the bridge of the Lion a staff officer near me said: “If he does that when the Germans attack he can’t be defeated, but he can’t win.”’

“Thus was Jutland prefigured in exercises. THE ADMIRALTY AND THE FLEET. “As for the Admiralty in its dealings with the fleet, it seemed to be informed with—- “ ‘A narrow ahd lifeloss spirit, expressing itself everywhere in the policy that the means were more important than the end.... It gives some measure of j what the navy is and might be to say that 75 per cent, of its efficiency was absorbed by the. Admiralty, and that with the remaining 25 the enemy had to be fought.’ “In one respect the Admiralty was excellent. It knew the German movements, and gave full warning of them to the fleet, though its information was ‘doled out to us in very small doses, and often too late to be of use.’ Thus, though Lord Jelliicoe did not put to sea for twenty hours after receipt ot the news that the Germans were coming out, Beatty and a part of the battle fleet under Sir G. Warrender were near Scarborough when, in December. 1914, that place was bombarded, and this curious interchange of messages took place: “ ‘We received a signal from Sir George Warrender: “Scarborough being -helled; 1 am proceeding towards Hull.” Beatty's reply to this was characteris-

tic: “Are y0u?.... I am going to Scarborough.” ’ DOGGER BANK SECRET. “The secret of the battle of the Dogger Bank is at last revealed. For the first time the public discovers that the British Fleet had full warning beforehand of the German movements, and that the official despatch describing the battle was so altered, at Whitehall that the Birtish battle-cruisers had retired ■for fear of submarines and mines, which drew from an American commentator the verdict:

“ ‘Admiral Beatty on the evidence of his published report ought to be shot.’ I showed this article to the, Admiral (Beatty) at the time, and his only comment was, “1 quite agree with him.”’ BUGGINS’ TURN. “On the eve of the battle a new rearadmiral was appointed as second-in-command of the battle-cruiser squadron. This was unjust to him, as he was entirely strange to the methods by which it had been trained.

“‘I managed to raise a somewhat grim smile on my chief’s face by reminding him of Lord Fisher’s aphorism “Some day we shall lose the Empire because it is Bugging’ turn.” And we very nearly did.’

“At the crisis of the action the Lion was disabled, and the new second-in-command. was left to cany out Beatty’s last signal, ‘Keep nearer to the —the exact modern equivalent of Nelson's famous ‘No. 16/ ‘Engage more closely.’ “He appears not to have liked the situation, ajid to have been pre-occupied •with thoughts of risk and danger from mines, and it is hard, reading sqch signals as he did make, not to believe that his conception of his duty as a commander was to get his squadron away from the track of the enemy as quickly as possible. “So three German battle-cruisers, two of* them terribly damaged, crawled home, and only the Blucher was sunk. WHAT LORD FISHER SAID. “Such a result required explanations, and they were demanded by Lord Fisher. Mr. Filson Young was given the task of a satisfying his grim inquisitiveness. It was an impressive interview. “‘Turning his hard, wise old eye upon me he said, “Well, tell me about it. How was it they got away? What’s the explanation? Why didn’t you get the 10t?.... I don’t understand it.... Submarines? There weren't any; we knew the position of every German submarine in the North Sea-, and there wasn’t a mine within fifty miles.” He looked at me as though my explanation had been a mere invention.’

“‘.Come,’ he said, ‘you were there. You saw it. What do you think?’" I told him what I thought, which was very simple and could be expressed in one sentence. Lord Fisher made no reply except a brief ‘Oh!’ and sat for perhaps a minute staring hard at me, during which time I began to wonder whether 1 had nqt perhaps been a little too frank.” THE WRITER OF THE BOOK. Reviewing this book by Mr. Filson Young, the- Nation says: “The author does not .argue, but merely relates what came within the range of his own knowledge during a period of the war. It happsns that his relation is that of an observant and thinking man who is by nature, one guesses, made lonely and suspect because of his acute, ironic, and independent mind; for the world does not take warmly to its .bosom the clever looker-on who can be neither cajoled not* intimidated. Still, Mr. Filson Young, in the way of those who are difficult to please, lets out his pent and native generosity on the men, like Beatty, whom he finds worthy of praise. He is also a sensitive artist, and his words have to pass an exacting conscience, so that he has written a war-book which is not only an indispensable foot-note to history, but is a very entertaining, and occasionally an exciting, narrative. His sea-pictures have the quality of a painting by Whistler. His frank exposure of his own reactions under fire will sound curious and even improper to those who think a uniform makes a man inhuman. “The stern arbitrament of war, which fills popular history with exciting reading and patriots with lofty sensations, is, after all, as an arbitrament, no more than a leap into the dark, or an infallible system ut Monte Carlo. And it can never be anything else. “If a reader will ponder this book by Mr. Filson Young he will begin to see why. One discovers in it some perfect pictures of that vast lethal engine one community builds against#another, without knowing its potentialities, and without being able to control it once it is in motion.”