This is about little ships and the big me who man them. I don't mean the Navy proper, but small craft that only became His Majesty's when, under emergency powers, they were requisitioned and mostly given guns, and a uniformed crew who hoisted the Pima mer sere White Ensign in place of the old red duster. I can't tell you exactly how many of the kind are requisitioned, but there are very many hundreds. Now what sort of ships are they? First, the heaviest subscriber is the Fishing Fleet—trawlers that drag a trawl on the bottom for flat fish; drifters that drift up to a mile of nets to entangle herrings and small motor vessels that use a seine net or long baited lines for such fish as will oblige. Lately, the fisheries have been through lean years, so the vast majority of the trawlers, and nearly all the drifters, are veterans of the last war, and they have led a strenuous life in the interval. In taking these up, the Navy tries to keep a balance with the Ministry of Food, who want the utmost fish, Believe me, it's a delicate balance to maintain Requisitioning is often the test of an owner's patriotism; for example, a fisherman whose boat is the breadwinner. A yacht, too, like a dog, is very dear to the master, fi particularly when it is his regular home. But there have been few owners who have not accepted their fate loyally; many offering their personal services and even suggesting they serve as cook or steward. Others offer ' boats without payment. Here is a typical example of enthusiasm. A man of seventy, who owned a yacht and wanted to serve in her, was a bit over age for that, but he insisted on taking her round to the port where she was to be employed. As a result of machine gunning, he died, as he would have wished—commanding his little ship on war service. Keeriness to help has come from others than British. Two American owners, whose boats were in England, sold them to the Admiralty for one dollar apiece. Another not only presented his yacht, but paid the refit to make her an efficient naval unit.
How do we employ these innumerable little vessels? Far the biggest requirement is mine-sweeping. I well remember how we used to search 1,000 miles of home water for mines daily in the last war, for I was directing mine-sweeping. Then we had just one sort of mine—the moored kind. Now there are other types, as well as that old moored one, laid by both submarines and aircraft. This calls for different antidotes and more little ships to manipulate them. It also means more sea to cover with the sweeps, because enemy aircraft can drop mines in places where his ships cannot go, spots that were then peaceful waters. The old-time minesweepers laid a sound foundation on which the present organization was built. Then it was dangerous enough and needed much. seamanlike skill, but was far less scientific than now. Today there is the added danger from the sky, and quite a lot of applied science is necessary.
Next comes submarine-hunting, which takes the largest of the little ships. And auxiliary patrol too, a great force of sen-tinds near the shore. Then there are spectacular jobs, equally vital to war at sea—for example, examination craft to see that no ship enters port that shouldn't. Many of our harbours are protected by boom defence. This also needs beamy ships to work it. Boom defence keeps the submarine out, and again it has to be: patrolled by other craft, waiting to drop depth charges on an offender. Little ships are also wanted for balloon barrages. Some of them accompany convoys past Hell's Corner, We also have to find speedy rescue craft, ready to pick up any of our matchless airmen who may have to bale out, for the Navy, you must know, has the job of satisfying the needs of both airmen and soldiers when boats in large numbers are required. And all this outfit of craft applies equally to ports abroad. It means that from small building yards at home in the Dominions and in the Colonies a steady flow of little ships is taking the water to replenish stocks.
In the meantime, the shipyards have to conserve what we have, and right well they are doing it. Losses often occur. They will certainly continue and need replacement. New. requirements daily arise, and another factor or drain is that just as you and I cannot work 24 hours of the day, so ships require spells for refit—that means a larger number must be available than actually on duty, and the small ship is easier to damage than the big one. Hence our needs.
So much for the ships. And now the men that man them. The officers comprise a sprinkling of the Merchant Service; officers who did training with the Navy in peace time. They are the R.N.R., but the needs of the Mercantile Marine have taken most of them. The handicap has been overcome by business and professional men of every description—actors, stockbrokers, musicians, journalists, farmers and men of every sort of shore job, even officers that served in our armies in France in the last war, and a famous Member of Parliament and author who still seems to prefer bell-bottomed trousers to a temporary commission. These are the R.N.V.R., a permanent force in peace time, now enormously increased, all men who" had learned to understand the sea in little yachts. Surely brine is in the blood of the British race, for these fellows have taken to naval jobs like ducks to water. They didn't sit tight and wait for influence to help them tə commissions; many preferred to enter through the hawse pipe. that is. to start as a seaman on the lower deck.
Yacht clubs have given many officers to the R.N.V.R., and British yachtsmen have a world-wide reputation. By the way, the American Blue Water Medal, the prize for the finest piece of amateur seamanship of 1940, was awarded to British yachtsmen for Dunkirk. Last, but not least, we have the skippers of the trawlers, as great a body of tough seamen as exist in any of the Seven Seas.
The fine spirit of the officers is none the less evident in the men, who are mostly fishermen and form the Royal Naval Patrol Service, but others are landsman by trade. lovers of the sea, as the registration officers know from the number who registered choice for naval service, and now thes whom the si was more or Jers a houday me
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.