WARTIME DUTIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1940, Page 7

WARTIME DUTIES

FISHERMEN OF ENGLAND. MANY HAZARDOUS TASKS. Though many of the fishermen of England are still at work with net and trawl, many others, while the war lasts will be searching the seas on. a more hazardous quest (writes a correspon1 dent of the “London Observer.”). As in 1914-18, fishing vessels are going out as mine-sweepers-—hunting foi . the deadliest catch of all. Again the Government has taken over a large part of the fleet. Hull, for example, usually with 260 tc 1 280 boats, has only 35 left for norma! work and these are away at present in the distant waters of the far north looking for cod and ling, dogfish and , catfish. Icelandic turbot and holibut, White Sea and Icelandic plaice. TheNorth Sea fleet brings in. roughly, the same type of catch. West Coast boats, it would appear, are not adapted for the task of minesweeping, so the men of Milford Haven Fleetwood, and the other ports can go to the fishing grounds on- their customary errand. Groups of fishermen and their families are helping in another way —on shore. The Ministry of Supply needs camouflage nets in hundreds of thousands, and in many cottages women and girls are now braiding the nets by hand. Ultimately they will be used for hiding guns and ammunition wagons. , tanks, and stores and the innumerable objects that must be concealed from enemy aircraft. Thus, at the same time, English fishermen (and women) are providing food, guarding the coasts, and helping in land defence. The mine-sweepers have the most perilous task. Even the rigours of Arctic fishing—and twothirds of our fish is caught in those waters —pale before the constant watch for the lurking mine. The anthem of the craft, nevertheless, must always be that cheerful poem of Kipling’s, in which five trawlers, their names a jaunty flourish, do their work off the Foreland:- — Sweep completed in the fairway, No more mines remain. | Sent back Unity, Claribel. Assyrian, | Stormcock, and Golden Gain. Now. after 20 years, the sweepers have returned to their posts. Steam trawlers and drifters are not meant for show. But anyone seeking the traditional colour of the fishing industry can find it still when the smaller boats put out on a favourable even-ing—-their sails, in the fiery and smouldering lights of an autumn wood, matching russets with tawny yellows ochres, browns, and Venetian reds. On such occasions, off Mevagissey or at Plymouth, when sails are flickering from the Cattewater. it is possible to forget the auxiliary petrol engine. An early morning fish auction on Plymouth Barbican, quay glistening, noise prodigious, is as-lively a scene as any when New Street was really new. Everywhere, though, whether the fishing is deep-sea or inshore, there are weeks of dark weather when the boats arc grey shadows in the grey, and the ' crews must struggle for bare existence. Seekers for the romance of fishing may get a blunt reply. Deep-sea men, who voyage in the farthest north, often work for 40 hours on end without rest in pitching seas and semi-twilight. Even so. this is preferable to mine-sweeping and a life on Unity. Claribel, and Stormcock in time of war. The war. it -seems, has brought a small addition to our fishing fleet. A I new company has been formed to operate five trawlers which escaped from Poland before the outbreak: they will now become British ships.