1940-04-30 — Page 3

Tuesday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

April 30, 1940.

Cars, Supreme Court

MAGAZINE

BLACK SEA

Rumania, controlling Danubian Dutlet to Black Sea, and disturbed by rumours of revived Russian claims, to Bessarabla, watches Soviet Turkish manoeuvres fearfully,

HUNGARY

PAGE

How BRITAIN is MEETING

the MENAGE of the MINES

IT was pitch dark on the wharf the minesweeping trawlers were moáred.

The wharf was slippery with ice and still smelt of fish. But instead of barrels of cod- liver oil, all the paraphernalia of minesweeping, and buoys and sinkers and colls of wire, were heaped up under the sheds.

Looking eastward from the deck of one of these trawlers, I saw the dawn coming through a cobweb of shrouds and ratlines that listened with hoar frost. The trawlers were packed together the busin like sheep iurn pen, und the smoke

from their funnels rolled away In sooty black clouds, What sounds there were came froin below. shovels scraping on the stokehold plates, and the clang of a furnace door. Presently an unfamiliar ob-

NEWS REEL

Odessa: Russia's Black

Sea naval air base and most important port for expart of petroleum tu Far Eastern Soviet army

Turkey resists Russian pressure to Close Dardanelles(already refortified by Turks) to foreign warships, wishes for treaty securing relations with Russwaye? Compatible with Anglo-French commitonenly

U.

S. 5.

U KAMPY

R.

Traspol

Ddesia

Crim

*Krasnodor

Stavropol

RUMANA

Bucharest

.Soft

BULGARIA

Yarne

BLACK

Constantinopte

E

Batum

Transcaute

Trebizond

Oallipe

Ankara

K

-SLAVIA

GREEC

AEGEANOSÉ A

TONIAN, SEA,

MEDITERRANEAN.

italy works to form neutral Balkan bloc under italian influence, withdraws troops from Greek-Albanian frontier to reassure Greece-

No longer can Turkey be dis-

missed lightly as "The Sick Man of Europe." Ta-day, powerful and as united as any Power in Europe, she holds a key position in the fateful game of power politics.

But this key position has dan gers as well as advantages, and certain of the dangers are seen in the delays in the negotiations now taking place in Moscow between M. Sarnfortu. the Turkish Førelen Minister, and M. Molotov, the Soviet Prime Minister,

Why is the Black Sen (over 700 miles long and nearly 100 miles wide) so important to Russia? The mop above shows the factors which help to keep this inland sea one of the most important strategical points in Europe,

First, Russia must guard those vital lines of communication be- tween her two ports, Odessa and Batum, and the Mediterranean, the Danube and the Far East. Once loose in the Black Sen, for. eign submarines could do untold damage to Russian shipping, and warships with the aid of alreraft could possibly destroy the Baku oll fields behind Batum.

But such ships could only pAKA Into the Black Sea through the narrow, 40-mile chinnnel of the Dardanelles, which joins the Mediterranean and the Black Sen.

And the guns of Turkey do minate the Dardanelles,

But Turkey, watching and countering the southward drive of the German-Italian axls, needs Anglo-French backing, and the price of that backing is the open- Ing of the Black Sen to the Anglo- French flects in time of That la Turkey's dilemma.

war.

Smyrna

Adalia

Dodecanese Islands, ceded to Italy by Turkey by Treaty of Lausanne, 1923, form naval-air base for potential operations in Near East, but are vulnerable to Turkish attack.

IRAQ

Titis

Dotted line across Black Sea shows quickest route for Soviet oil from Batum to Germany- via Danube. Hence Soviet anxiety to keep Black Sea neutral.

ROOKIES, 'SHUN!

by Will Shebbeare

TO-MORROW go to join the

of

Ariny. And in the nick time there arrives for review a shilling booklet "full of advice and hints for young soldiers."

I say "In the nick of time" be- enuse 1 understand from this book- let that my fellow-soldiers will talk a language of their own. And how without this booklet I could have understood a word of what they will be saying I cannot for the fe of me tell.

Quite a large part of this booklet Is taken up with a dictionary of this language. There are entries in it like:

Flying trapeze .Cheese. Corp

D.A.

.Form of familiar address 10 a friendly corporal, Damn all. Self-

explanatory. Dekku

Look. Gaspirator ....Gas mask. P.B.I.

.The infantry's name for itself. Sugar

.Money. ALL manner nt advice for the

thold recrult is crammed into these 00 pages. It will take some living up to:

The army hates a slacker or a slommock."

"Do not choose a bed next to the N.C.O or the stove--both theso positions sometimes become a source of jealousy."

"Trust your officer and If any trouble should arise, and you have

a reasonable explanation by all means give it.. If you have none, own up like a man."

"A fatigue lusts but for a day but at any rate provides a change from the monotony of parade duties.”

"Certainly in ordinary civilian life you would not be able to de- vote as much time and aftention to such gumes and athletics in general as you can now,"

"Wear two pairs of socks." "Leave sick parade alone as far as possible."

THERE is some extremely helpful advice about how to recognise an officer in the blackout:-

"You must be guided by hin hearing, for it is a fact that the possession of the King's Commis- slon gives a certain air or swagger rendily distinguishable by the army

man.

"There may be two brothers, one a gorgeous Sergeant-Major and the other humble Second-Lieutenant, but there is still some subtle differ- cace, Shall we say one has the 'spit' and the other the polish"? CERIOUSLY, this book, Soldiera ➜in Training, by Soldierman (Frederick Warne and Co.), is really very helpful, I feel re- nssured by having rend it, and the thousands of other young soldiers who will be called up this week with me will find it worth buying,

All the sume, I shall burn it be- fore I set oft for the barracks. If I were seen there with such a book I should be ragged unmercifully.

Ject in the stern caught my eye and in a minute or two when the light new stronger I.caw what it Right aft, where normally the ensign staff stepped, was a Christmas tree,

was.

I felt that it was nymbolic of something, apart from being a re- minder of recent festivity, and while I was ruminating about it the siren tooled three tunes and we begun to elbow our way stem first out of the Jam We were the first out and as we glided clear the skipper of the adjoining trawler a few feet away grinned at us. We were going to spend the day to- gether, his little ship and

ours, yoked together by a magnetic sweep in a fairway where mag- netle mines were suspected to be lying.

notic netic

GERMAN mines are roughly of two types. The magnetle mine which lies on the bottom, and the moored impact mine. The mag- retic mine doesn't require to be struck to detonate. It explodes when

passes into its mag- ship pass netd. Counter incusures against this type of mine consist in substituting a magnet for a ship and trailing it over the mine be- tween two trawlers, both of which are hoping rather fervently that the magnet, rather than they, will do the detonating. The impact

mine is moored to the bottom by a sinker and length of wire. It is delonated by a ship striking one of the horns projecting from it. I will describe presently the counter measures employed against these mincs.

it was daylight when we reached the open sea. A grey day with a wind out of the north-east as sharp and cruel us broken glass. The litle trawlers lifted their heels to the swell and threw the spray over their shoulders. Ocensionally a wave flopped inboard and sluiced across the deck. Everybody wrig- gled into life-belts and tied the Tapes very carefully, without com-" ment.

The skipper had spent the last war minesweeping.. Thirty-five years he had spent in trawlers, Ilshing and minesweeping. He was a bald, clean-shaven man, husky as a crow, and had a secret

for Contempt He confided to me that the sound- ings were mostly wrong inside the 40-fathom line. He was the type that I imagine finds his way about the fshing banks by smelling the lead, and some mysterious sixth He confided many things to me on our way to the sweeping grounds: amongst others that be had eaten an entire bottle of cough lozengen -during-the-night--They failed to cure his huskiness, he said, and made him feel very queer.

Admiralty charts.

WELL, we reached the channet ut Our length brid slowed down. companion sweeper came plunging up on our quarter and we veered a grass line to her which she pick- ed up, and shackled a wire to it, This we hauled Inboard, connected It to our sweep wire and paid it out stern again. As the wire was paid out, various contraptions were shackled to it at intervals und finally the two trawlers started off abean of each other, the submerg- ed sweep towing between them. It all sounds very simple and straight-forward as I have describ- it was a magnifi-

edit: A co-ordinate team work

cent bit of

and

seamanship, The trawlers pitched and rolled and the loy spray drifted over them. The man at the winch, with a bright-blue balaclava helmet on his head and a cigarette in the corner of bla mouth, controlled the wire miracu- lously, checking it to a foot when shackle on necessary to some appendage. He had the lives of everybody on that heaving deck in his hands, over and over again, scures of times during the day. The

mate working on the shackles

it

Was

with a marlin-splke had bare hands

scarred all over with old streaked with blood gashes and from new DCs. Once the spike slipped or was jerked from his umb flagers and went overboard. Somebody handed him another; he put out his hand for it automatical- In silence. There were scarce- ly, In ly any or

orders except in the cua- tomary undertones, Nobody got in anybody's way or was at a loss in any emergency.

There are times when a wire can behave like mad python and be rather more dangerous. Every man on deck had handled wires from childhood, knew exactly what to do without being told, and did it.

Then we settled down to sweep, I should describe the operation, from a spectator's point of view, as a rather blood-curdling bore- deen. Up and down the channel we went, with the walling gulls for company. Every half-hour or so the cook staggered round with mugs of tea-hot sweet to the colour of mahogany, He owned n small puppy which lived confiding- ly among seabooted feet and relish-

ed match stalks above all forms of nourishment,

*

WHEN we came to the end of our beat the Heutenant jerked the siren lanyard and the other trawler slowed down, cased her helm over and round, we entre. She kept perfect station un us all day. There was no signalling except the

siren at toot on

the turn. The Group Leader jerked his head ni our sister trawler and made the same remark ench tline We steadied on the course. 'You's a good Ind!" he said.

We passed the day yarning. The men stood huddled on the lee side of the upper deck sinoking and watching the sea. They were all shermen. from Stornoway and Peterhead,

Shields, They hud no illusions about their job. The week before A trawler had gone

and

there was one survivor. Of the rest and the ship not a trace was found. They saw it happen. Yet they were undismayed;, soft- spoken, gentle-mannered men, just carrying on with their job, supremely efcient. It is dimeult to put into words what England owes them.

Grimsby, Lowestoft,

up

Well, the light began to foil so we huuled in our sweep and went bucketing home in the dusk. Our Christnius tree lifted against the

one sky ut

moment and then showed up, against the broken water astern. When we got in we reported the channel swept and apparently clear of mines.

Next morning I went off in a different trawler to the southward, where there was a known mine- field-moored impact mines, the

horned variety. This field WDS by fleet sweepers being cleared towing

are known อง This is n eigar- Oropesa hat

Sweeps.

n dag on shaped arrangement with it towed from the sweeper. A board called a kite attached to the wire keeps the oropesa out on the quarter of the towing ship and the wire is weighted so that its curve intercepts the mooring wire of the mine and cu

cuts it. The

The mine, re- leased from its slinker, then Boats to the surface. Occasionally it ex- plates in the sweep. Th

The sweepers steam in echelon-that is to say on ach other's quarter-with the Lows of the second ship following the lender's oropesa Bag, and so on down the line. They start at the edge of the minefield and sweep backwards and forwards on the principle of bacon slicer, enrv- ink

off a slice of the minefield each time, A couple of trawlers followed behind. One drops dan buoys-buoys” with flags secured to sinkers by wire-to mark the edge of the swept section. The ollier sinks the nines as they appear on the surface, and picks up the buoys when they are no longer required.

to

drop

+

THA trawler I was in was com- manded by a skipper whose father was, the first mlñe-sweeper to put to sea in that area in the last war, The son was the first in the pre- seni war. Our job was primarily buoys along the swept edge of the minefield astern of the

We started in the dawn.. sweepers, and an hour or two later the mines began bobbing up ahead of 19. A horned mine awash is not a pretty object. They drifted away astern of us and presently we heard our opposlle number banging off at them with her Lewis gun. The sky cleared and the sun shone. The cook brought round tea at

at intervals. At intervals we dropped a

a buoy, and the deck was alive with writhing wires for a moment. Then a heave and n

overboard went splash, and

the 150 lb, sinker and everybody look a long breath.

All day we went to and fro, dodging the harvest of the sweepers, loying

mooring and buoys. The sun sank over the land, and as the aweepers altered course for the base, the algnal lamp

of the leader blinked at us through their smoke: Two mines bearing so and so, sink and return to har- bour. Well we found when we got there that there were three of the beastly things, and the sun was rifle. selling. Everybody grabbed The Lewis gunner, who had been a confectionery delivery driving a von four months ago, opened fire Provided on the nearest mine. you puncture it with sufficient rifle bullets and don't happen to hit one of the horns, .a mine sinks without exploding. It was like shooting at a glass ball bobbing on a jet of water at a fair. The trawler rolled, the mine appeared and disappeared in the waves 300 yards away. The Volunteer Re- serve signalman and the

gunner sank the first. Then the skipper got his eye in and did some pretty shooting. The sun cank lower and disappeared. The

followed sult amki chcers.

lost ono was a race against the kathering darkness. But at length. It bobbed, more sluggishiy. Then only one' horn projected devilishly from a wave crest. The Lowls gun fired one burst and it vanished.

the

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HIS MASTER'S VOICE TWO WORLD FAMOUS TENORS PRESENT

A PROGRAMME OF POPULAR BALLADS

JOHN MCCORMACK

DB340-Drink to me only with thine oyes

Ah Moon of my delight,

Dni200-Kathleen Mavourneen

"Persian Garden"

Love's old sweet solg DA1312-As I sli here. (Sanderson) *-*-*-*-*-* I know of two bright eyes"

DA1341-Love's TORCH

My moonlight Madonna. (Poem) DA310-Come where my tove les dreaming

Funicul! Funicula

RICHARD CROOKS

DB1798 loly City

Star of Bethlehem DA1163—For you alone

Because. (d'Ilardelol) DAU99--Song of Bongs

Ah sweet mystery of He DA1536-Bird songs at evenilde

Green hills of Ireland DA1394-I love thee. (Grieg)

Parted.

(Tosil)

TSANG FOOK PIANO COMPANY

MARINA HOUSE

19 QUEEN'S ROAD C

MAIDEN VOYAGE

PHONE 24648.

FIVE DAY EXCURSION TO MANILA

EARLY MAY Leaving Hongkong

Using the ship as your Hotal during Overnight

- AT MANILA

ALSO: SECOND WEEK IN MAY THIS NEW VESSEL TO: SAN FRANCISCO, LOS ANGELES,

via

SHANGHAI, JAPAN,

and'

HONOLULU.

A fow reservations still available for Shanghai only. NEXT VOYAGE THIRD WEEK IN JULY'

Complete Information From Your Agent or NIPPON YUSEN KAISYA

KING'S BUILDING

TELEPHONE 30291. General Passenger Agents in the Orient for. Cunard White Star Line