NAMING WARSHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 January 1940, Page 6

NAMING WARSHIPS

FIRST LORD’S PRIVILEGE. TASK MAY BE DELEGATED. LONDON, December 16. With the construction of a large number of new vessels for convoying merchantmen, minesweeping and hunting submarines, the Admiralty is faced with the problem of finding suitable names for them. Nominally the job of choosing the names belongs to the First Lord,' and some of them have very jealously guarded their privilege, but. as Mr Churchill has other things to do of great importance, the work may be delegated. During the last war various officers chose the names. The first 50 sloops were named after flowers in the'garden of the acting-Aclmiralty Librarian and have been called the “Herbaceous Border" ever since. It was a senior captain in the auxiliary patrol whr. had the idea of naming the new Admiralty trawlers after Nelson's men at Trafalgar, and caused the Admiralty to honour a number of men who had been passed into the Fleet as an alternative to being gaoled for smuggling. As far as possible names are chosen so that ships of the same type have names taken from the same group—seaside towns, racehorses, naval heroes, etc.