Tuna Comes Home
Bearded, grimy and tired, but still with enough vitality to laugh and shout--that is how a British submarine crew comes home, leaving the shell that has been so long a prison.
Another trip is over. It was perhaps crammed with thrills and dangers; perhaps nothing happened. But it is all the same to the men.
They are back to be nursed into the peak of condition before they face fresh dangers.
I call them dangers; to these men they are just incidents of little consequence, as I gathered
By William Gibbons
when, after the Tuna had come into the Trot (alongside the de- pot ship), I went into the sub- marine and heard the story of their action against a German U-boat.
Like Liner
I toured the depot ship, and, having seen much of the British Navy, I rate it as one of the won- ders of the Service.
It had me thinking of a giant liner in which I once travelled. There's not the luxury of such a liner; it's just completeness and, as befitting the Navy. scrupulous cleanliness.
а
I first went to the "parting It seemed to me, shop," where,
men handled these £2,000 tor- pedocs as a child does his first toy motor-car. They have to be overhauled when they come off submarines, and may
need re- pairs before they are re-issued. So it is that you can see theso experts toying with tools in the intricate mechanism of 6,000 parts that make up a "tin fish."
Round the corner I found my→ self in the sick bay. It's not just It's a verit- across the Adriatic; we prevent spit and polish here. the Italian Navy from taking any able hospital with every modern
the effective part in
campaign equipment. against Greece, and we have turned the Ægean Sea into a Bri- tish Lake.
East
Plenty To Eat
The Stoyadinovitch pol- icy soon became unpopu- lar in а Slav country where pro-French feeling was strong and British in- to boast that
There are 20 beds in the main fluence by no means neg-nullified British sea power. Malta
bay and four in the isolation ligible. Prince Paul visited
ward; an operating theatre, London several times.
Most important of all, we main-X-ray room, laboratory and dis- tain ล stranglehold on Italy pensary, and there are four doc- The present Premier, M.
by stopping the whole of their tors with a nursing staff (taken These boastings fooled quite a
and Tsvetkovitch, is a moder- number of people including some
commerce inwards
out-from the crew of the ship, mark with of the British successful torpedoing from the air wards
the rest of
the you!) ate Serb, under whom the leading members
Cabinet. The stories of 500 Italian of the Italian warships in Taranto world. Her garrisons in Yugoslav constitution has air desperadoes ready to make a
harbour. During the Norwegian | Africa and Abyssinia are cut off been remodelled on a more death or glory assault
on the operations we also scored consi- and isolated; while we can move derable success against German our supplies and troops anywhere
room The "Dobie" British Flect had their effect.
would be liberal basis. He seems
warships lying in the Norwegian at will.
the envy of many a housewife. This is one reason why sanc- nords. to have been lulled, how-tions were not pressed home as
In the big action in the Sicilian There the men wash their smalls. But it is a different proposition Straits on January 10, the main And what luxury! They've half and that, again, ever, into the belief that a policy.
attacks from the air were made a dozen deep washing bowls-or one of the causes of the collapse to attack a fleet at sea. True, we
they may better be he can restrict Nazi en-of the League of Nations and the have had several ships damaged by the German Air Force operat- sinks, as
and a warm of by bombs, but, except for which present croachments,
the ing from the Italian aerodrome at known-hot water we have Catania. Our objective was to drying cupboard. It is, indeed, a means inevitably
convoy of munitions complete laundry. that Munich there were similar boast cruiser Southampton,
ings by Goering and other Nazis only actually lost destroyers by pass a big
The destroyer built and other supplies through to the matter is not yet as to what was to be done to the air attack.
The cook is a master of his art. ΠΟ Greece, and this we succeeded in ended. There are
British Fleet by the Luftwaffe if primarily for speed, carries nu-
and armour. Larger ships of modern doing, with damage only to three Though down to rations, he can war came between Britain
and I would merous minorities in Germany.
construction are protected by stout warships, two of which reached provide meals you armour decks, and experience has harbour.
like to get; yet the cost is 1s. 8d... the country, among whom
proved that even a direct hit by
So much for the boast that air a day per head, which means a Germans number 300,000
the heaviest type of bomb is not
bill totalling £600 a week for tho power would nullify sea power. necessarily fatal.
It is the same story in home Admiralty. out of a total population
The truth is that a warship at waters. There was
Of course, you can buy a lot this much excuse
True, the German Air of nearly 14 millions, the for our doubts, The present-day sea and steaming at full speed is Force damages our merchant for £600. and this cook does. He
difficult ค
target. We knew shipping and assists the German uses four tons of potatoes a week. majority of whom are air weapon was untried, and no
one ton of other vegetables, two one felt sure what its power was that already from the gunnery U-boats in locating our convoys, Serbs and Croats. The
been view. It has indeed, these point of
But the stranglehold of against warships;
the tons of meat, and 35,000 pieces of and again how blockade on Germany is main- fruit (apart from dried fruit). latter have for long de-doubts had a good deal to do with proved again
the overcautious handling of our difficult it is to hit the deck of a tained, and German merchant No less accomplished is the manded autonomy and a
freely only move forces in the Norwegian ship steaming through the water shipping can naval
in the numerous air attacks in the Baltic, and, to a limited ex- federal system. The fos- campaign.
With the
made on our tent, in the Black Sea. German Air Force which have been tering of Serbo-Croatian
able to use the Danish aerodromes convoys of merchant ships in
Always Ready else- Channel and the English dissension in an acute and one or two of the Norwegian where.
Naturally, there's 1 certain form may be one of Hit- ones, the then Higher Command It has also been proved that
The Royal Navy is still a fleet amount of untidiness, and a If anything is ler's ways of dismember-the relief of Oslo and for the the heavy anti-aircraft battery
great deterrent to penalty for it. ing and dominating Yugo-purpose of cutting the German carried by the modern man-of-in being, the
is a good deterrent. Her any attempted invasion of these left about the mess decks, cloth- slavia if it suits Axis lines of communication with Nor- war
Yet, in these operations, guns' crews, necessarily exposed islands on a large scale. When ing, books, etc., it is taken to the plans. But both Serbs one of the most important large on the upper deck, must be well we speak of sea power, however, Scran Bay" and a forfeit of a and Croats have cruel scale attacks on a fleet at sea was trained and resolute; and then we must remember that this in-slice of soap has to be paid to
but retrieve the article, useful cludes not only warships, they can put up a very made by German aircraft.
The submarine mess decks are memories of Germans in This was the occasion when the barrage against the attacking Air the aircraft which operate over
always ready for incoming crews, the last war. And they struck on the quarter-deck by a flagship of the Home Fleet was
We need more heavily armed each of whom has his own locker. long-range fighters. We nced The mess is kept clean for them are not incapable of off-heavy bomb. Her stout armour-
more flying-boats for patrol work while they are away, and their ering stout resistance to and she was able to keep at seu ed decks prevented vital damage,
and convoy protection. I myself tables and stools are triced up Now let us return to the Medi- have for long advocated the pro- until they return for probably an invader, even if Yugo-ft for action until the end of the
There, de vision of more anti-aircraft ships their first real meal for weeks. slavia is liable to attack operations on which she was then terranean situation,
engaged.
spite the numerous aerodromes in converted from fast merchantmen, Sicily, North Africa and the A medium-sized liner of good by Germany from two
Dodecanosc Islands, We have speed could have her upper deck sides at once through |
maintained effective control of stripped so as to mount a very terial have been the Middle Sen.
numerous armament of A.A. guns, | for naval purposes, Hungary and Rumania.
We are enabled to reinfored Such ships could accompany |_ These, however, are As yet the voice of theNow, after 16 months of war,
we have much more experience, and supply the Army of the Nile the fleet or important convoys, The broad facts remain that sen people has not been A well-planned and skilfully and also our Greek allies and the and could be provided in some power is holding Its own against cooperating with short space of time. Nor am I the new air weapon, and, In the
ther drama yet.
damage. The classic case is the tions between Italy and Albania” of our available labour and 'ma- this war.
declined to..send our heavy ships
way.
Force.
the sea.
baker. All the bread and cake is made in the ship.
given priority
detalls
heard. There may be fur-directed air attack on ships in British forces
harbour can do u'great deal of them. Wo hinder commurtica altogether satisfied that enough long run, will prove decisive in