NAMES AND PLACES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 29, 12 January 1940, Page 2

NAMES AND PLACES

" The Invisible Man " An unimportant message on New Year's Day stated that Lord Hankey had accompanied Sir Samuel Hoare on a tour of the forward zones in France. That is typical of the mystery man who is Minister without portfolio in the present British Cabinet. Lord Hankey, formerly Sir Maurice Hankey, is known as "the invisible man." He was secretary to the Cabinet during the last war and for 25 years he has been familiar with all the political secrets of Britain. He has been offered fabulous sums by British and American publishers for his memoirs but refuses to disclose any of them. He is 62 years of age, and it is said of him that he always listens and never forgets. Lord Hankey is an Australian, born in Adelaide. As a youth he entered the Royal Marine Artillery and served on H.M.S. Ramillies (not the present battleship), and later joined the Naval Intelligence Department. His services were so outstanding that during the war he combined the offices of Secretary to the Cabinet, secretary to the Committee of Defence, and secretary to the Privy Council. He has attended every important conference-General Imperial Conference (five meetings), Peace Conference, Washington Conference, Genoa Conference, London International Conference, Hague Conference, London Naval Conference, Lausanne Conference. It is reported that in 1915, when the famous Admiral Fisher was terrorising the British Admiralty, Lord Hankey remarked: "You don’t have to put any fear into me, Admiral: do that to the Germans." Gamelin’s Brevity French official communiqués on Western Front activity are notoriously short, but there is a reason for this. General Gamelin’s bulletins contain less informa‘tion than any ever issued by a military leader. He is not an enemy of the Press, but he points out that during the last war Germany obtained 80 per cent. of her inside information from indiscreet Press messages. Compared with the headquarters of Joffre and Foch during the. last war, General. Gamelin’s office is like a monastery. Nobody talks. No Minister, except the Prime Minister, M. Daladier, receives any official information. As a result of this silence, the Nazi chiefs know very little of the actual activities on the Western Front. Sea-Power in Wellington Wellingtonians, at least, saw something of Britain’s sea-power when ‘H.M.S. Ramillies, 29,150-ton battleship steamed unexpectedly into the harbour. She is a sister ship to the Royal Oak (sunk in Scapa Flow), and_ cost £3,295,000. H.M.S. Ramillies is commanded by Captain Harold Tom Baillie-Groham, D.S.0., O.B.E., who ‘was recently in charge of Boys’. Training Establishment and. commanded

H.M.S. St. Vincent. He is the son of a British Columbian pioneer, author, and sportsman. Captain Baillie-Groham served with the Grand Fleet in the Dover Patrol destroyers and minesweepers during the last war; headed the British Naval Mission to China in 1931-33; and commanded the First Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean from 1934 to 1936. H.M.S. Ramillies carries eight 15in. guns, twelve 6in. guns, four 4in. antiaircraft guns, two torpedo tubes, and one airplane. She has a speed of 23 knots and carries over 1,000 officers and men. Her heavy armour consists of plating 13 inches thick, tapering to four inches at the bow and stern, During her

short stay in Wellington she was open to the public. Honoured by Britain The report that a British and French Expeditionary Force of 300,000 men is to be prepared as a_ precautionary measure against a possible Russian attack on the Afghanistan frontier, extends the war (on paper) to still another area. General Weygand is to be charge of this force. This famous General is half French, half Belgian, and a product of the great French military college of St. Cyr. When the last war broke out he was a Lieut.-Colonel commanding the

5th Dragoon regiment at Nancy, but .later became chief of staff to General Foch and served in that capacity until the end of hostilities. General Weygand has been in charge of the French army advanced military studies, and was a member of the French Supreme War Council. He is most popular with the British, and has received three British honours-the C.B., the K.C.M.G., and the G.C.M.G. The Admiral Scheer Since the scuttling of the German pocket battleship, Graf Spee, after the now-famous sea battle off Montevideo, little has been heard of the other two -Admiral Scheer and the Deutchsland. These ships, by the way, ° cost £3,750,000 each to build. Until the Graf Spee went into action, the Admiral

Scheer was the only one which had used her guns against an "enemy." This was in 1937, when she served in Spanish waters, conveying German merchantmen to port. On that occasion the guns of the Admiral Scheer were trained on the Spanish town of Almeria and did considerable damage. It was a "reprisal " for the "bombing" of the flagship Deutchsland. These pocket battleships have 54,000 h.p. Diesel engines and their plates are welded instead of being rivetted, in order to save weight. Each ship carries six 1llin. guns, eight 5.9in. guns, anti-aircraft guns, torpedoes, and two airplanes,

"ul a @) aul One of the best stories concerning General Gamelin’s brevity is told of the last war when he was appointed to General Joffre’s staff. One of Gamelin’s duties was to prepare each day for Joffre a complete record of the day’s progress and events. This came regularly to Joffre’s headquarters at a certain hour and was eagerly awaited by the French leader. One day the report did not arrive. After waiting impatiently for some time Joffre sent an orderly to Gamelin with the following cryptic message, ‘" ? — Joffre." The reply came back, " O — Gamelin." Kronstadt Kronstadt, which has appeared in the news again as a result of the heroic stand of the Finns, is Russia’s most famous fortress. It stands on the Island of Kotlin, at the extreme end of the Gulf of Finland and guards the only sea route to Leningrad, as all shipping must pass close to the island, It is of great strategic importance, the Finnish frontier being only 15 kilometres away, and is the chief naval base of the Soviet Union, Admission is prohibited, except to officials. In 1917 the garrison of Kronstadt revolted and declared itself the Kronstadt Republic. Later the cruiser Aurora bombarded the Winter Palace in Leningrad and assisted with the Bolshevik victory. In 1921, the garrison again mutinied against the Soviet Government, took possession of the fortress and two battleships. Peter the Great captured Kronstadt from the Swedes in 1703 and fortified the island. Since then it has been the background for many amazing scenes both in real life and in romantic novels. The port is ice-bound from December to April. British Bombers The part which Britain’s Wellington bombers have played in attacking enemy bases in the North Sea brings to mind the big new bombers which have not yet been used, but which Britain has ready. These are thie huge Handley Page Hampden bombers, 1,000 of which are being built in Canada. The new bombers will be flown across the Atlantic. Fitted with huge petrol tanks, they have a non-stop cruising range of 3,000 miles, without load. Naval Secrets Berlin has denied the report that Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, supreme head of the German Grand Fleet, had resigned his high office. The loss of the Admiral Graf Spee must have been a severe blow to this naval officer of the old tradition. Another disaster to worry him was the loss of the U-boat which was found stranded on the Goodwin Sands, off the south coast of England, some weeks ago. No official statement has yet been made whether the German naval code was found in the U-boat. If this had not been destroyed, the British Admiralty will have some useful information, though present-day naval codebooks are printed on paper which tears easily and burns quickly. During the last war, when the German cruiser Magdeburg was wrecked in the Gulf of Finland, the Russians discovered the codebook of the German Fleet and passed it on quickly to the British authorities.