"Frigates are the eyes of the fleet. I need ten more." These lines from Nelson's despatches to the Admiralty during the blockade off Toulon were typical of the frequent stress Britain's great naval leader placed on the value of a far-seeing watch over the enemy's movements. The more frigates Nelson could throw out ahead of his battle line the more effectively could he maintain contact with the foe, states the "Christian Science Monitor." By posting lookouts aloft during the daytime, Nelson's long string of frigates kept the flagship informed by signal gun and code flags of the strength and whereabouts of the enemy and the course on which he was heading.
Already enough is known about the Battle of Matapan to stress the part the British fleet's eyes aloft played in helping Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham to manœuvre his fleet so as to bring the Italians to action. Planes sent out ahead of the British forces based at Alexandria are said to have spotted the Italian fleet which had been ordered to intercept a British merchant convoy, and to have reported by wireless the strength and direction of a raider force.
That the United States Navy is fully awake to the effectiveness of scouting the seas by air has long been proved by its pioneering development of naval air forces operating with the battle fleet from aircraft carriers, in scouting operations with the cruisers, and in long-range patrols from land bases.
It is this awareness which gives impact to still another timely move on the part of the United States to strengthen the Navy's air watch over the country's coastal ramparts—as shown in the plans now underway to construct some 48 non-rigid airships, more commonly known as blimps, for service above the sea approaches to commercial ports and naval bases. These blimps will be used mainly on lookout service. They will be to America's shore defences what frigates were to Nelson before Aboukir and Trafalgar, or aeroplanes to Cunningham at Matapan.
Operating within easy range of its coastal bases, a blimp can sweep in a few hours an ocean area a surface ship could hardly patrol in a day. The lookout in a destroyer's crow's nest at a height of some 80 feet could see not more than twelve miles even with perfect visibility. A blimp cruising 500 feet above the water increases the range of human vision to 30 miles. Thus at a moderately higher altitude a blimp can patrol a belt of ocean 100 miles Wide, and three times faster than the normal cruising speed of a surface ship.
The ease with which a submarine may be spotted increases progressively with the spotters altitude, Submarines running submerged are expected to be easy prey for slow-cruising blimps. On sighting a submarine, the blimp need only reduce speed and hover over it until a surface ship responds to the blimp's radio summons and plants depth charges in the spot indicated by the blimp.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.