The opening of the Singapore Base, completed at a cost of £20,000,000 to protect British interests in the Far East, has revealed another chapter in the odyssey of the 18-inch naval guns built and used by Britain during the Great War, and apently are still so effective and serviceable to be included in the armament at Singapore. Three of these guns were built during the w and although not possessing the same range as the "Big Berthas" with which the Germans shelled Paris they are equally as famous. Weighing 145 tons each and firing a shell of 3400 lb. with a muzzle velocity of 2200 feet a second, these guns were and still are among the largest ever built. Of the three, two of them were mounted on H.M.S. Furious, a cruiser which was subsequently converted into an aircraft carrier, for service in the Baltic, but as they proved too unwieldy for a vessel of that character they were mounted on monitors and used effectively along the Belgian coast during the German retreat in 1918 at a range of 35,000 yards. During this period the guns were really being tested and no definite results were ascertained but since then they have been proved and to find them forming a component part, with others, of the armaments at Singapore Base is a flattering tribute to the designers and builders who brought them into existence more than 20 years ago. A picture of one of these guns is among the unusual collection of war souvenir photographs in the possession of the Zero Club. Naturally, details of the Singapore defences remains a secret but a monitor type of vessel. developed from the war types, is also stationed at Singapore. She is H.M.S. Terror, a base of ship of 7,200 tons, which among her armament mounts two 15-inch guns.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.