The Republican journal., 1920-12-30
United States Navy

Anticipstes Eneland's "Mystery Ships"
Now that the British navy's two new
s'mystery ships'' stand revealed to the
world. even though their purpose re-
mains. hidden. Popular Mechanics Mag
azine is able to disclose the significant
fact that America first pointed the way
to what now appears as new era of
naval engineering, by recent construction
of a most extraordinary marine fortress.
The probability that this queer naval
unit in the Pacific Ocean, entirely un-
known to the vast majority OF Amer
leans, was directly responsible for the
British inspiration, becomes at once APP
parent when the specifications for both
are laid side by side, and their remark
able departure from all previous practice
is Rrasped, The information on which
this surmise is predicated appears in an
illustrated article entitled Strange Con-
crete Battleships Built on Oceans Floor"
by Paul H. Woodruff, in the january
number.
That the British admiralty's new
achievements comprise two of the
strangest marine structures that ever
kept nation in excited suspense during
all the months of their building, is APP
parent from both the photographs and
the descriptive matter. For with all the
seer ICY of the undertaking, the very bulk
OF the new units prevented their conceal
ment from curious eyes, yet only added
to the mystery of their projected USE
Properly they are not ships at all, but
mammoth towers of steel and concrete,
1870 feet high, with bases about as great
in diameter, and weighing 10, 900 tons.
That such an imposing edifice, massive
as some great public building, should float
at all is remarkable; yet the first one
launched actually drew only IA feet of
water The manner in which it was tow
ed inuo the open sea, through harbor
entrance only feet wider than it's base,
and finally sunk in 70 feet of water in the
Solent, is an unusual story of engineering
skill There it now stands, its steel SUI
perstructure towering ITO feet above the
surface, it's base of nearly 100, 900 hexa-
gonal blocks weighted down with con-
crete until it forms verltable fortified
island. What may be the duties of the
silent crew that inhabit its six inner
decks, or of the huge electric plant that
occupies its core, is still a mystery.
The extraordinary undertaking of the
United States Navy that initiated the
new system of artificial Gibraltars is
marine fortress erected between LuZon
and Corregdor, in the Philippine islands,
1t is nothing less than a huge stationary
stone battleship, built upon a stub of
rock whose surface area is practically no
greater than the concrete hull of the mo-
t'onless craft itself. The soldier crew of
this queer fortress live and work in pit |
70 fit. deep, with walls Is #. thick, hoI-
lowed out of the solid rock. Several |
tiers of decks, always electrically lighted |
and ventilated, are made comfortable by
every possible application of modern sci
ence, and on the level main deck huge |
turreted guns sweep the horizon and |
guard the entrance to Manila Bay day
and night, In outward form, the Ameri-
can fort is ship, while the British
ships" are forts; but aside from this
wholly superficial distinction, the SINH
Iarity is SO marked as to warrant the
of both as representative
Of new order of naval architecture.