Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-09-08
BRITISH BUILDING
GREAT WAR FLEET
Every Type of Craft Under
Construction; Trained Men
Ready For Every One

a certain small section of British
water front where more ships are up-
der construction to-day than the en-
tire shipbuilding facilities of any other
nation could undertake at one time.
They include every type of craft from
submarines to battlesnips and from
steam trawlers to Atlantic liners. Most
, governments lay down their battle
ships and cruisers singly, and the
lesser craft perhaps in pairs, but here
battleships loom UP as twins. light
cruisers by the half dozen. destroyers
in rows of ten, with many braces of
long submarines, and an occasional
monitor.
The war fleet under the hammer and
and the paint brush here would rank
in the naval list above the establish
ments of several modest maritime
powers. 1t could demolish the two
squadrons which fought the battle of
Manila Bay with one volley, and then
steam against the com bined American
and Spanish fleets of Santiago with
confidence. And the merchant ships
in the stocks are as many as the
United States mercantile marine has
added to its register in several years.
Trained Crews Ready
we have trained crews ready to
step on board all these ships as soon
as they are fitted" a naval officer re-
marked
Under tutelage of Hugh Law, Ma
tianlist member of Parliament for
West Donegal, a party of correspond
entS spent a crowded day on land, on
water, and on ships in dock, at this
base. They saw something which
they are not permitted to describe in
detail and many things which they
cannot describe for lack of technical
knowledge; for the ordinary man the
visit furnished mostly illumination
upon the vast scale on which sea
power is arranged, and upon the kind
of men who manage it, and their
hard but cheerful lives.
The general stage setting for this
swift review of the fighting and trad
ing vessels under construction con-
sisted of several miles of water front
lines as thickly as could be crowded
with skeletons and hulls. The stocks
carried everything of the final type
Until next year, or next week, for
every naval campaign means new
ideas, new devices, new lines of con-
struction. Two years of active serv-
ice under war conditions have brought
a great advance to the British navy,
already acknowledged to be leader in
most naval matters. Every ship and
every detail of a ship, is the last word
in its class, according to the war bought
judgment of engineers and fighting
officers. In one noticeable detail at
least British naval architects appear to
have been converted to the principle
of one feature of American warships.
Follow u. S. Monitor Style
The monitors make an appeal to an
American because there is a suspicion
that other navies were disposed to
scoh at them for years. Yet here they
are, with all their superficial changes
and embellishments a tribute to what
the brain of John Ericsson conceived
in the sixties. The monitors have been
employed in the shallow waters off the
Of
fectively at Gallipoli. The correspon-
dents there described them fully. Two
or three strata of the outlying hull
may be penetrated by torpedoes and
the monitor can still keep at work
with her guns.
for the water, according TO informa-
ton rendered, are expected to demon
strate themselves the most efficient
machines of their family ever COM
missioned, and they look it. The bat
tleship standing in the timbers or
land with all its lines revealed, show
ing its adaptability for speed, presents
different picture from the fighting
ship seen above water and has a sug-
gestion of racing yacht. These had
been constructed in something like
half the time consumed in making a
big warship in pre-war days.
There were several so-called de-
stroyers certainly as long as many
light cruisers of earlier times, ten of
them extended side by side in one row,
and others elsewhere.
Just where the superdestroyer
leaves off and the light cruiser begins
is not a matter of length to-day. Be-
yond the destroyers was a line of long
thin skeletons of submarines, whose
size could not be judged at all ac-
curately in passing view, even if it
could be reported. Compared with
he 1I1 g. -I.;z
are as the Aquitania to the Philadel-
phia.
submerge in 20 Seconds
Floating alongside a dock was a
brand new submarine, painted and
polished like a touring car fresh from
the shop. Her young commander
stood alongside and proudly pointed
out some of her attractions. From
his transparent enthusiasm she might
have been a pleasure yacht instead of
the vehicle for the most dangerous
form of adventure that fighting men
undertake. of course we are not in
the same class with Horton and Roi-
brook" he explained but I hope you
will hear something from Y Seven
teen" pointing 10 the number paint
ed on the turret. He observed that
this thing could submerge in twenty
seconds.
From this largest shipouilding sta
I1O44 AZ IIlS "Oilu, Win lIS miles OF
smoking factories, and with its rever-
berating clangor of thousands of
hammers ringing upon steel, the party
Travelled over night to the most ex
tensive naval base in the world. This
was place where ships run in for re-
pairs, for oil which is almost the only
fuel of these days for ammunition and
stores. Here they are replenished, re-
fitted, repainted frequently and then
disappear into the mists of the North
Sea, of which typical one was en-
eoulirered on the morning of this
visit
The shipbuilding district was
realm of private enterprises, factories
ana yards where rich firms carry on
their own work independently and
with no visible traditions of discipline
and no outward signs of professional
comradeship, except perhaps in the
luxurious Offices decorated with
models Of dead and gone ships dating
from eras of wooden and iron hulls,
where the directors entertain their
friends in peaceful times and now by
brief, but earnest after lunch speech
gave unneeded assurances they were
working as hard as the men who wear
gold braid.
The naval yards present an ASPECT
of their own. Their whole area and
their activities certainly are as diverse
as those of the shipbuilding com
munity, but all is under one manage
ment and one directing brain. There