1940-10-29 — Page 11

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DESTROYERS FROM AMERICA FUNNY SIDE UP

The news that fifty American destroyers are being disposed of to Britain will come with unfeigned relief and satisfaction to those who know something of the work of the British des- troyers since the beginning of the war.

Ships of round about 1,200 tons and 35 knots speed, armed with 4-inch guns, the for destroyers transferred service under the White En- sign are no longer new. They 'form part of the United States building programme of the last war, most of them having been completed between 1918 and 1920

the

After serving with United States fleet, they were later relegated to the reserve and kept in full running con- dition and ready for any emer- gency. Their age does not matter. Many British des troyers of similar date have done yeoman service as con- voy escorts und in many other directions during the last few months.

The names of not a few of these older craft have cropped up in connection with the and operations in Norway, Holland, and during the now historic withdrawal of the British and Allied troops from Boulogne and Dunkirk.

Between 1914 and 1919 there was hardly a purpose for which des- troyers were not employed at one thne or prother. They were used as anti-submarine screens with the heavy ships of the fleet whenever they went to sea, for beating off hostile destroyer attacks with ther guns, for attacking the German fleet with their torpedves, us well ag for making protective smoke- screens. They escorted minelayers and aircraft-carriers, and towed kelte balloons.

Provided with listening devices, rams and depth charges, they formed bunting flotillas for harry- ing the U-boats. They were usert for coastal patrols, and for voying transports and merchant- men far out at sen in every sort of weather.

con-

In the Dardanelles they landed and embarked troops, while in the same compalm, in the Suez Canal and on the Flanders coast, they bombarded troops and gun posi- tions nshore. They were utilized for minelaying and for minesweep- ing, as well as for rakling harbours In the islands of the Aegean.

It has been much the same in this war, except that their work has been more varied sil, and. much more enerous, with the ad. vent of aircraft and such things as magnetic nines.

Their work at Boulogne and Dunkirk is known all over the world; but who at the beginning of this war, would have thought of ocean-going destroyers chasing the Germans Unough a two-hundred a Norwegian ford ten gop in a miles long well beyond the Aretie Circle, and varying in width be- tween three-quarters

and

a

Ja quarter-

Their losses, thirty at the time of writing, have not been light,

It unwise to estimate the num- in ber of British destroyers now service; but with those required with the fleets in Home waters, the Eastern and Western Mediterran- can, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the besides others working with convoys of merchantmen, in sub- marino hunting and a variety of other purposes, it cannot be sakt that Britain his over-sufficient tor ber manifold needs.

In the last war, when, during the unrestricted submarine campaign of 1917, Britain had more than 400 vessels of the destroyer class in operation, they were spoken of by the naval historian, Sir Julian Cor- bett, as being run off their legs." He went on to say that no praise could be too high for the men who endured the strain, or for those who built the no-less-sorely-tried hulls and engines.

موان که

Co-

Six American destroyers salled from the United States to operate on April 24, 1917, and by'

there were thirty-four American destroyers working from Queenstown, some meeting the re-inforcements from American France for out at sea, others the ordinary convoys of merchantmen coming to the British Isles,

Some 400 American vessels-of- war and 81,000 oneers and men of the United States Navy saw ser- vice in Euopean waters before tho armistice the ship November, 1018. Of

eighty-five were destroy-- ers, most of them modern; but six, old and under 500 tons displace. ment, made the long journey of 12,000 miles from the Philippines to Gibraltar.

**

1.7 >> The value of the services of the Americans can hardly be Before their exaggerated.

arrival, in an area of about 26,000 square miles in the western approaches to the English Channel, through

which flowed an enormous volume of trade, there were sometimes as

few RS

four available Dritish destroyers for patrol work. Never were there more, than fifteen.

The American building program- ine, embarked upon Immediately after her rupture with Germany, was almost without precedent. It included 275 destroyers, 147 sub- murine chasers, VD submarines. 112 "Eagle boats" intended for coastal patrol work, and 54 minesweepers, not all of which were completed by· November, 1018.

The speed with which some of the destroyers were built constitut- ed a world's record. The pre-war time for completion was between twenty months and two years, but 1917 one, the "Word,” was launch rd 174 days after her keel had heen lald, and commissioned

in

seventy days. The "Reld" was commissioned in 45% working days

ter-of-a-mile. Yet this they did at from the time she was laid down.

the second battle of Narvik on April 13, to see their stricken nd- versaries hard up against the lee at the very end of the narrow water-

way.

☆

When this war started the British Empiro possessed 185 destroyers of all ages, count- ing those in the Royal Austra- lian and Canadian Navics. Some thirty-eight others were under construction or project- ed, of which the greater num- ber must now be completed or nearing completion.

It can be assumed, too, that the 'building programme in ships of the destroyer typo has been greatly enhanced since the outbreak war, as they are needed for many different purposes.

BO

As already Indiented, the British destroyers have been hard driven since the beginning of this war One of them steamed 62,248 miles if the first nino months; another, 25,840 miles from September 3 to December 31, 1930, during which she was at sea for 101 days out of 119.

In

On escort destroyer which I was on board for more than a week had done a thirteen-day trip at sea, followed by, thirty-six hours harbour for refuelling, storing and provisioning, and, then another oleven days at son. As a general rule, worse the weather or the fog- gier,

the sea trips. the longer In an order to the fleet in March the Admiralty appreciated.."—the

Iargo

expenditure of

of effort which the

care * and **maintenance of machinery and equipment through- out the winter months has involved. in - circumstances of continuous watchkeeping,

By TAFFRAIL

famous British Naval writer

That this amount of steaming hos been possible is a tribute to the designers and builders, but still more NO the personnel of all brunchies who have maintained the efficiency of their ships under the most difficult conditions, especially in view of the dilution of comple-- nents which has of necessity taken place."

And what of the future?

* ✰ #

Britain has been apoken of as a fortress, as indeed she is, armed at every point and her armaments constantly increas- ing. Germany holds 2,000 miles of the coast from Nor- way, through Denmark, Hol- land, Belgium and France to the Spanish frontier.

en-

The Royal Navy is busily gaged in home waters, oh both basins of the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in any and every sea throughout the world where

ere German or

or Italian activity may be manifest by sur- face ships, U-boats and aircraft. Never, since the beginning of its History has the British Empire been engaged in so gigantle a struggle against the forces of evil and for the benelit of all mankind.

However, it is idle to talk of Britain, the heart and nerve centre of the Empire, being in any sense a beleaguered fortress. In spite of the merchant ship losses, new cons- truction. captures, and tonnage acquired through-the-German-be- of Norway, Denmark, cupation Holland, Belgium and France, the n:ercantile tonnage working in the

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Allied causé is greater than at the beginning of the war.

Moreover, and what is more im- portant still, neither German nor Itallan merchantmen are at se on the broad oceans, while the British merchant fleet continues its toxic of supplying the country with the essentials without which it cannot exist. This all comes about through of -the-ovorwhelming strength

British Sea Power.

Britain may be hard pressed; but is successfully holding her own.

VETERANS OF

From RICHARD CAPELL

from those of other areas, but. it also puts trump cards in his

The green and plea-. hand. sant counties compris- ed in the area of the Command Southern

never beautiful.

looked

more

But this time the reason for a tour of these pastoral valleys, these headlands and beaches, was not the charm of the country, but the defences, military and naval.

Compared with Eastern England, the South was al- ways a kind of Cinderella as An in- regards its defences. vasion of Eastern England was in '14-18 a possibility always taken into account, but the South was naturally considered to be practically Bufc.

When last June the whole face of things changed, there had been no land defences constructed in the South sinco the days of Napoleon III's Empire. Now, Palmerston's mid-Victorian forte may, after- all, como in useful.

To see the South after tho East and the North is to bo tho struck once again with variety of landscape and sea- acapa contained within our little England.

The South presents pro blems to the Army Com- mander remarkably different

In a lour of many hundred miles it was agreeable to think, as we made our steep and winding way through Southern England one day, of the plight in which hostile tanks would surely find them- selves between those high hedges, where the narrow and twisting road presents no view.

In exalted positions in the Southern Command one meets men who won or enhanced their reputations this year in France, and they are concern- ed with the lessons. not. of '14-'18 but of 1940.

The core of the Southern Army consists of troops who have fought in France and Norway, and in the eyes of veterans. the rest they are "The now soldiers hang on their words"—this was an ex- pression I heard at one head- quarters.

Neither German U-boat nor alr- craft have prevented British war- shilps from operating, or her mer- chantmen from sailing the seas.

Nevertheless, the acquisition, of fifty most useful destroyers from the United States is a most hear- tening and timely addition to our naval strength, and a token of the sympathy and unity of feeling that animates the peoples of-the-two-

a troubled great Democracies of world.

1940

on

bile. It is an army

wheels. Fity, 80 and 70 miles a day aro covered in marching exercises

The parrying of an Invasion' is the absorbing thought, as well it may be with the enemy in occupa- tion of Normandy and Brittany.

Invasion may come any night: that is a thought all are, taught to bear in mind. And the watchword is: "If the invaders can't be shot in their boats they must not bo allowed above high-water mark."

HOME GUARD'S

VALUE

Again, as in the North so in the South, appreciation of the Home Guard was heard in the highest quarters.

The G.O.C.-in-C., Lt.-Gen. Au- chinleck, says that since June he has been compelled to change his mind about the Home Guard. He began by being a little sceptical about their usefulness, but is glad now to allow that they may play a vitul part.

The men are getting more useful every day, and the more they are asked to extend their

the scope better they like it. To put roughly: The task of the Home Guard is to hold pill-boxes and rond-blocks, leaving to the Army proper the job of counter-attacking and throwing the enemy, back into

THREE SERVICES MEET the sea.

There is a new collaboration be- tween the Navy, the Army and the Air Force in the defensive work in the South. Wo meat,” a general sald to me, "at high-water mark on the beaches."

Close co-operation within the,' Army is a result of this year's cam- paign in Franco. The career of the British professional soldier in typically a business of guarding out» posts of Empire with small forces. But now in the organisation of the defence of England all arma aro closely associated in exercises and preparation.

The Southern, like the Eastern and Northern-simins, is very mo-

A morning was spent with_the gunners who look out to sen from the neighbourhood of one of the -southern ports: They will, one feels, he disappointed if the oppor- tunity never comes for them to fing their missiles at an invading 'armada,

A day or two with the Royal Navy is

a heartening experience. Circumstances have brought into the Royal Navy, or into association with it, ships and men of more m- tionalities than it has over embraced In all the centuries. The admiral who.commands at one centre has half a League of Nations under him. Jo speaks in the higher terms of the Poles.

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