Thursday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
April 11, 1940:
MAGAZINE
DRAMA OF
A
PAGE
NAZI GRIN AND BEAR IT
NAVAL FUNK HOLE
"T WOULD
Here is told the
THE KIEL CANAL
rather have the neutralisation of the Kiel Canal than a thousand Heligolands," anld Winston Churchill during the pence negotiations of 1918.
He was speaking from experi- ence, for it was the opinion of naval strategists during the war that the Kiel Canal more doubled the potential value of Germany's navy.
than
IT represented a bolt hole not
only from the North Sen but from the Baltic, and in less than nine hours a German warship could pass from one sen to the other.
Bismarck, Germany's Iron Chan- cellor, had realised the potential- ties a generation before. It was his legacy to the young empire.
Until it was built the only route for all sea traffic between the Bal- tle and the North Sen was round the long Jutland peninsula, and through one of the three tortuous passages of the Little Belt, the. Great Belt and the Sound, which Reparate the islands between Jut- land and Sweden.
Linking Jutland with Germany are the ant sea marshes of Schles- wig-Holstein, scarcely higher than the sen. Through these marshes -Bismarck-started 10-drive-lik. canal.
in 1887.
It was finished in 1805, 6135 miles of waterway, a few milles. longer than the Panama Canal. protected from the marshland by high banks and crossed every few miles by high-level bridges.
On June 10 of that year it was. officially opened and christened the Emperor Williams Canal. Nearly every Power in Europe was present at the celebrations. We sent some of our latest and most efficient warships and King George V, then Prince of Wales, to represent us.
***
IT was afterwards suggested
RA
that the ceremonies had a double-edged significance, for the British warships steamed slowly through the canal after the Imperial yacht, offtetal. German photo- graphiers stood on the banks and took close-up photographs of them.
As soon as the ceremonies were over the Emperor showed Europe that he realised as well as any one else the military importance of the work.
There followed years of measure and counter-measure, spying and counter-espionage,
For as soon as Germany, made confident by the canal, adopted a cocksure attitude towards Western Europe, Britain built her dread- noughts. The Emperor, too, kept up the race.
Then he realised that effelent an his great warships might be, they were too largo to go into the Kiel Canal.
German opinion about widening and deepening the canal was clar)-- fled in 1000 by a mysterious neci- dent.
A Belgian steamer passing through the Canal on her way to the Baltic struck one of the banks, sprang a lenk, slewed completely across the canal, and sank.,
This antlefpallon of Zeebrugge. Marticd Germany. Withla # monih: the work of reconstruc- tion started; it was reckoned that I would, tako seven years.
Germany guarded the socreta of the canal zealously. Two years before the war an oppreltensive English newspaper pointed out that this was the only way down which German warships could pass from the Britic. to the North Sen In wartime.
full dramatic story · of Germany's vital
waterway, which Bismarck built.
month the Emperor sent out in- structions that the work of re- construction must be speeded up.
N the summer of 1914 the
work was finished, two years before schedule.
It had cast £11,150,000, com- pared with the £7,800,000 cost of original construction, and the canal had been widened from 215 feet
to 331 feet, deepened from 20 feet to 30 feet. Here and there inlets hud been built so that two ships could pass.
The sluices near Holtenau, the gateway to Kiel Harbour, were the largest in the world.
On June 24, 1914, the canal was reopened. At the dinner which followed the opening the Kaiser made no attempt to hide his jubi- Intion. He gave some facts about the canal.
thrown open to the ships of all nations.
Within four years Germany challenged the treaty. The British ship. Wimbledon, carry- ing -war munitions from France to Poland (who was fighting Rus- sla) was held up by the Germans in the Kiel Canal,
France appealed to the Court of International Justice at The Hague, und the treaty was upheld by the Court, which ordered Germany to pay £1,000 damages to the French Government.
FOR years after the war the
only warship which the canal saw was a French des- troyer guarding the mouth of Kiel harbour. "Krupps' works outside Kiel stood silent and empty.
A few bitter anti-Germans wanted to destroy the canal, as they had destroyed. The fortifien- ilons on Heligoland. The only
concession to them was the destruc- Lion of Fort Labor, a fortified tower was built up again-Into a Elgantic obelisk to the memory of German sailors lost in U-boats.
Within fifteen years Germany began to rebuild her fortificatior's on Hellgoland.
Krupps are busy again outside Kiel harbour, and the "Trespass" notice boards are up again.
PHOTOGRAPHY
By Lichty
"We hope our work is okay, lady-an' we'd appreciate it if you'd recommend us to yer friends!"
PICTURES BY HOME LIGHTS
DHOTO bulbs - either
the flood or flash type-are used for most indoor pictures at night.
However, such pictures can also be taken by ordinary home lighting
.. even with cameras that don't have fast lenses.
The only difference is in the time of exposure.
With the photo bulbs, you can make snapshot exposures. But with ordinary service bulbs, short time exposures are needed, unless the camera has a Inst lens.
Now that we live modern high speed films, the exposures re- He-pointed-out-that-in-the-sid-quired. uro.quito short.CK-.
pecially if the subject is near the light source.
Ingy in which ships could pass the whole of the German Navy could be accommodated. It was noted by the quests that Kiel had become Germany's Portsmouth, defended by powerful batteries on both sides of the harbour.
The southern end of the canal was guarded by Cuxhaven, then the most strongly fortined district on the whole German const. A ship with a draught of anything more than twenty feet-that is, anything bigger - than a
second cluss cruiser-would be compelled by sandbanks to keep within 2,000 yards of the const for more than twelve miles
"Germany," said the Emperor at that dinner, "must be in a position to carry out one of the best say- ings of the Iron Chancellor: 'We Germens fear God and otherwise absolutely nothing and no one in the world.""
BUT two days later an in-
cident
occurred which murred the even tenor of Ger- many's celebrations.
Imperial
Police guarding the Dockyard at Klel noticed that a little rowboat was within the limit prescribed by the huge nolieca which warned off "Trespassers." They arrested the rower, who was an elderly man.
Two hours Inter he established his fdentity as Lord Brassey, the of Britain's most distinguished re- presentatives. Lord Brassey was also the founder and editor of the Naval Review and a celebrated naval observer.
The police lind no alternative but to release him.
A week later, on July 4, 1914,
London an illustrated
paper published a map of the canal and holed with alarm its signi- Aleance.
A month later England and Germany Wero al war,
All strangers were immediately forbidden either to enter or leave the town of Klel. All restaurants and popular places near the har- bour had already been closed for several days.
Al
neutral vessels were ordered to clear the port within twenty-four hours.
For the rest of the war the canal' was the secure haven of refuge for the German Fleet,, and a thorn in the side of the Allien.
Hence Mr. Churchill's declarn- tion. It had his way: the Kiel Canni 'saine
Was
Internationalised,
In August 1012 Ave Englishmen were arrested near the Kiel Canal
suspected
spics. The
SUN
For example, note the picture on the right. The child's face is about one foot from the light, which is an ordinary 100-watt bulb. Therefore an exposure of 1 second was ample, using a box camera loaded with high speed film. Slightly Icas exposure would have sufficed,
*
TIME exposures are about
A one-second time exposure was amplo for thla, with a box camera, high- speed film, and 100-watt bulb in temp.
by LORD
THE war certainly has not
as easy to take as snapshots T
but you must remember to have the camera on a firm, solid support.
That's to insure against accl- dent movement during exposure. If either the subject or the camera moves, the picture will be blurred.
The farther the subject is from the light, the longer you must ex- pose. Suppose, in the picture above, the child wna Alve or six fent from the light. Then, with'a box camera and high speed flm, the exposure would have been 10 to 20 seconds.
Excellent exposure guides are now available for pictures by re- gular home lighting. These ATC helpful in taking pictures of people, at-life shots, table-top scenes, and so forth. They also provide a guide for picturing the rooms of the home; and, of course, rooms look more natural when plintographed with the normal lighting.
M
SOME evening soon, load up your camera with high fim and try a series of pic- tures by regular home light- ing.
Watch for "off guard" picture chances-members of the family Bitting quietly under a reading or sewing.
lamp.,
A quick time exposure of a second or so will get them.
Shoot a few "interiors," show- Ing different rooms of the house and "maybe a table-top picture or two.
(It's cdny—and you'll find more subjects than you think.
developed as many people expected, and it is certainly not surprising that one of the consequences of that should have been some criticism of the Government.
Some people say we have taken a lot of action and imposed many restrictions that experience shows to have been unnecessary and are merely evidence of bureaucratie red tape, which we all very pro- perly dislike.
No one could tell before the war that these precautions were going to be unnécessory, Certainly no Government could have taken the chance of being on the wrong side, and the blame that is attached to us for uction would, I suggest, be nothing to the blame that would rightly have attached to us if we had been. In fact, caught unpres bared. The fact that precautions have been taken is one of the in- fluences which have deterred our enemy from taking a particular course of action.
M
M THERE was another wider consideration.
Germany's only chance of win- ring this war was to win a quick war by enahing-in on the advan- tage they possessed through long preparations, through their forti ncations in the West, their air strength, and their readiness to stop at nothing in waging war by
Yet
they have hesitated to lounch this big offensive on land or in the air.
Certainly not, I think, because of any lender feelings for you and me, but simply for the rea-. son that makes the bully healtsie In hit someone who may hit him bank
I have heard it and by men of responsibility and trained. Judg ment that if the winter were to
HALIFAX
pass without a great land offensive by Germany it would be the equi- volent of a victory in a major campaign for the Allies, I am not competent to assess the value of competen
that opinion, but do know that we have made very good use in- deed of these last months. We
have taken advantage of them to push on with our production and to land our ever-growing Expedi- tionary Force in France and, above all, to co-ordinate every side of our war effort with that of the French.
The Anancial and economic agreements we have made with France aro
·and unprecedented open a new chapter in the relations between our two countries, and we hope that the close system of col- Iaboration which these errangeTM ments represent may in time find a basis even broader and may lead on to such free and close associa tion
in economic and financial spheres between the nations of Europe as may hold out in the future the best hope of pencetul reconstruction.
ON and the French Army starida, as ever, the bastion of Western civilisation, and here also we did not, as lost time, weit until nearly four years had gone.
Untly of command was realised from the very first day of the, recognition that wo in this country give to the valour and military efficiency of our French Allies our troops, since the war began, have been under the commend of a French Commander-in-Chief to
and to send where he thinks ft. Meanwhile the Germans have been concentrating their efforts on forme of warfare that they have made partiru- larly their own. Indiscriminate warfare at, cox Against British, Ailled, and neutral Kulpning quite impartinity, by the unrestricted we of the submarine and mine.
Li
But in spite of every breach of inter- national law Germany seems to have gained astenuhingly title by it...
Since the convoy Bystem has been organised armething like 6,000 «zilpa find been convoved to the end of December, with the loss of only: 12-one in 800, TD-GAY · the peert" "of the world have been swept cibar of Germen shine and 140,000 tons ron aground” or scuttled.
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