G. R. S. Darroch

"I am more than grateful to you and your fellow-locomotive superintendents of the various railway companies for your readiness to help us in this time of pressure."

In these brief but none the less straightforward and sincere terms, did the late Sir F. Donaldson, then superintendent of Woolwich Arsenal, address himself to Mr. Cooke in the early part of November, 1914, terms expressive, not merely of his own personal feelings of gratitude, but also of Government appreciation of the assistance so spontaneously proffered by the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway concerns of the country.

Looking back over the four and a half years during which was fought out that "stupendous and incessant struggle," not without reason perhaps described as "a single continuous campaign," Sir Douglas Haig, in his final Despatch, under date of March 21st, 1919, whilst reminding us that we were at the outset "unprepared for war, or at any rate for a war of such magnitude," lays especial stress on the fact that "we were deficient both in trained men and military material, and, what was more important, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything approaching the requisite quantities." In short, "the margin by which the German onrush in 1914 was stemmed was so narrow, and the subsequent struggle so severe that the word 'miraculous' is hardly too strong a term to describe the recovery and ultimate victory of the Allies."

There can be no gainsaying the fact that in spite of frequent and bombastic assurances to the contrary emanating from the All-Highest, the Almighty must indeed have been on our side, for surely never in the history of mankind did a people "ask for trouble" in quite the same barefaced manner as did the great British people in the early part of the twentieth century of grace?

"Give peace in our time," might well be the prayer purred by the devout lips, year in year out, of innumerable comfortably-respectable, smug, and faithful citizens on each succeeding Sabbath day. Obviously, for there was "none other that fighteth for us but only Thou." There was never any attempt at denial; we were unprepared and well-nigh negligible, "deficient in trained men and military material." It will be argued, no doubt, that the practice of offering up prayer and supplication is a very desirable and eminently estimable form of procedure, but it is nevertheless a generally accepted theory that the Almighty helps those only who help themselves. Miracles do not perform themselves in these matter-of-fact work-a-day times, and we may pause to reflect both upon the cost at which, and the means by which, the miracle of our timely recovery and ultimate victory was performed.

"To our general unpreparedness," writes Sir Douglas Haig, "must be attributed the loss of many thousands of brave men whose sacrifice we deeply deplore, while we regard their splendid gallantry and self-devotion with unstinted admiration and gratitude."

This then was the cost, "the loss of many thousands of brave men," this the price in blood, the sacrifice upon the altar of unpreparedness. "Can the lesson," despairingly asks the writer of a leading article in the Times of April 11, 1919, "of this great soldier's remarks be missed by the most reckless of politicians, or the most fanatical of 'pacifists'?" Can it be missed either, it may be asked, by those congregations of the faithful, who, repeating as of yore the old, old cry "Give peace," resemble rather the ostrich that buries its head in the sand, making no active endeavour to combat the approaching storm?

Incredible that the lesson should be missed by any, and having marked the undying tribute which Sir Douglas Haig has paid to those thousands of brave men who for us paid the price, we may turn to that other tribute which this same great soldier unhesitatingly pays to those who supplied the means by which, miraculously enough, recovery was assured, and ultimate victory achieved. "The Army owes a great debt to science and to the distinguished scientific men who placed their learning and their skill at the disposal of their country." Such is the praise bestowed upon the distinguished heads of industry and of science as representing the vast mass of workers at the back, the backbone of the country, and undoubtedly, as the great Field-Marshal goes on to explain, "a remarkable feature of the present war has been the number and variety of mechanical contrivances to which it has given birth, or has brought to a higher state of perfection." But perhaps the most remarkable of all these remarkable features was that particular one evinced by that particular body of distinguished scientific men, to wit, the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway companies, in that, by their ingenuity and versatile ability, they succeeded in producing not the quantities only, but the varieties also, of all those mechanical contrivances which, as we know, added to the horrors of, as well as to the interest in, modern warfare.

But just as is the case with a railway engine, of which the whole forms so commonplace, if majestic, a feature of everyday affairs that seldom, if ever, does one pause to consider the mass of detail and intricate parts which go to compose it, so, too, is it the case with a gun, an aeroplane, a ship, a road motor vehicle, or whatever other equally familiar object that chances to catch the eye. Little does one realise the extent of the detail requisite for the framing of each and every such mechanical contrivance in its entirety. It was, nevertheless, "the dauntless spirit of the people at home," as Sir Douglas Haig openly avows, which "strengthened and sustained the invincible spirit of the Army, the while their incessant toil on land and sea, in the mine, factory, and shipyard, placed in our hands the means with which to fight." Nowhere was this "dauntless spirit," the record of this "incessant toil," better exemplified than by the staff and employÉs of the London and North-Western Railway Company's Locomotive Works at Crewe, that great "factory" in which were manufactured those countless component parts essential to the whole: and without which the gun could not be fired, the aeroplane could not soar, the ship could not swim: without which, in short, the miracle of our recovery and ultimate victory could not have been performed.

Let us take first the question of gun power; and we cannot do better than digest the further comments of Sir Douglas Haig. He says:—"The growth of our artillery was even more remarkable (than other remarkable developments alluded to in his Despatch), its numbers and power increasing out of all proportion to the experience of previous wars. The 476 pieces of artillery with which we took the field in August, 1914, were represented at the date of the Armistice by 6437 guns and howitzers of all natures." In order to stimulate this remarkable growth of artillery Crewe concentrated her endeavours upon 8-inch, 4·5-inch, and 6-inch howitzer guns; upon 12-pounder quick-firing guns, and in due course upon high-angle anti-aircraft guns. In conjunction with the guns themselves gun-carriages, carriage-limbers, wagon-limbers, ammunition-bodies—all were required with feverish haste. "Kultur," as has been pithily observed, "was working overtime to crush Civilisation;" Crewe Works responded by working twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four to beat the Hun; the spirit was indeed "dauntless," the toil "incessant."

And what, it may be asked, were the countless component parts essential, not only to the manufacture of these "attributes of war's glorious art" when entirely new, but which were further turned out in their tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds, nay, even in their thousands, as "piÈces de rechange," spares, all made to standard sizes and gauges, ready to replace at a moment's notice existing parts worn out or damaged in the field? Here, in motley assembly, are just a few: arcs, axles, bands, bearings, chains, collars, connectors, crank-levers, eyes, forks, futchels, guards, gussets, handles, hooks, keys, levers, loops, plates, rings, rods, sockets, springs, stays, trails, trunnions, tumblers, with a vast array of variously assorted bolts, nuts, pins, screws, studs and washers, one and all claiming the combined skill and energy of an army of smiths, forgemen, boiler-makers, fitters, turners, and machinists.

Yet in spite of the "incessant toil" requisite for the supply of this military material, such was the extent of our unpreparedness that "it was not until the summer of 1916," as we read in Sir Douglas Haig's Despatch, "that the artillery situation (as regards material) became even approximately adequate to the conduct of major operations.... During the battles of 1917 ... the gun situation was a source of constant anxiety. Only in 1918 was it possible to conduct artillery operations independently of any limiting consideration other than that of transport."

Once, however, the material was assured in sufficient quantity there was never any looking back, and "from the commencement of our offensive in August, 1918, to the conclusion of the Armistice, some 700,000 tons of artillery ammunition (equal to the weight approximately of 6,000 heavy express passenger engines) were expended by the British Armies on the Western Front," this prodigious expenditure of metal fully amplifying the opinion expressed by Napoleon, that "it is with artillery that one makes war."

Before finally laying aside the question of guns, and turning our attention elsewhere, a few reflections on that popular little weapon known as the high-angle anti-aircraft gun may be not altogether lacking in interest, more especially in view of the fact that the price of our unpreparedness in this as in other respects was destined to be counted in the number of lives sacrificed, of which the civilian proportion was invariably very high.

The gentle art of dropping bombs upon open towns was commenced by German airmen in the very early days of the war, and the French capital, perhaps not unnaturally, soon became an object of their attentions.

Under the heading "German aeroplanes over Paris," the Times' correspondent writing from Paris on September 2nd, 1914, records, perhaps, the first air-raid of the war, although at the moment "no bomb is reported to have been dropped." How irrepressible is the innate and inimitable gaitÉ of Parisien and Parisienne alike, even during the excruciating uncertainty of a raid, is delightfully brought out in the remark so typically French, "Comme il est dangereux de sortir sans parapluie." In this connection, too, one recalls the little ruse, pre-arranged between host and butler, for speeding the departure of guests, inclined to outstay their after-dinner welcome: "Messieurs, mesdames," announces the butler, suddenly appearing at the salon door, "on vient de signaler les Zeppelins."

In comparison with our own, the measures adopted by the French authorities for defence against enemy aircraft were, from the outset, on a considerable scale; in fact, prior to the time when Admiral Sir Percy Scott took over the defence of London, in September, 1915, there had been, to all intents and purposes, no defence at all; any impartial observer might even have inferred that we were doing our best to live up to the lofty notions of the writer in the Manchester Guardian of August 19th, 1915, who laconically decreed that we had "it in our power to turn every air-raid into a failure, simply by taking as little notice of it as possible." Whether this superior personage remained for the duration of the war so providentially privileged as to be able to take no notice of the air-raids that took place, history does not narrate. Suffice it to say that if we select at random two typical instances from the many which occurred—one on May 25th, 1917, at Folkestone, when 76 persons were killed and 174 were injured; the other on June 13th, 1917, in London, resulting in 157 deaths and 432 persons injured, without mentioning the amount of material damage effected—it is open to argument whether the public in general, and particularly those who were personally and in so tragic a fashion affected, were capable, even if they felt so disposed, of taking little or no notice of these attacks; it is also a moot point whether they or the perpetrators of these outrages regarded this particular form of "frightfulness" in the light of a failure, when attended by such undeniably telling results.

Happily the boot was not always on the same foot, for, as we know, the marauders on occasion paid the supreme penalty themselves in the course of their aerial outings, and this, thanks in great measure to the determined energy of the gallant admiral, to wit Sir Percy Scott, who, far from taking no notice of air-raids, lost no time in organising a vigorous system of defence against them. But as he tells us in his reminiscences, "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy," from the very outset of his endeavours he was hopelessly handicapped; for, whereas "General Gallieni, who was in charge of the defence of Paris, had for the protection of his forty-nine square miles of city two hundred and fifteen guns, and was gradually increasing this number to three hundred; whereas, too, he had plenty of men trained in night flying, and well-lighted aerodromes, he (Sir Percy Scott) had eight guns to defend our seven hundred square miles of the metropolitan area, no trained airmen, and no lighted-up aerodromes."

The amazing part of the whole business was, as Sir Percy Scott explains, and not without a touch of humour, the "War Office was as certain that a Zeppelin could not come to London as the Admiralty was that a submarine could not sink a ship"; hence the corollary that "London's defence was a kind of 'extra turn.'"

Nothing daunted, however, and fully determined that London should be made to wake up to the dangers she was running, he succeeded in spite of all difficulties, and after procuring suitable ammunition, in increasing the number of his guns from the initial eight to one hundred and twelve.

Herein it was that the locomotive shops at Crewe were once again called into requisition, for, as Sir Percy Scott tells us, "unfortunately mountings had to be made for these (guns)," mountings such as base rings, pedestals, pedestal pivots, as well as elevating arcs, sighting arms, etc., the manufacture of which necessarily "took a considerable time," but which were successfully evolved with a minimum of delay at Crewe.

Then again, "the few guns we had for the defence of London were mounted permanently in positions probably as well known to the Germans as to ourselves. We had no efficient guns mounted on mobile carriages which could be moved about and brought into action where necessary."

Being anxious to secure from the French authorities the loan, as a model, of one of their 75-millimetre guns, which as he knew were mounted on motor lorries, and in order to circumvent "Admiralty red-tape methods," Sir Percy Scott promptly took the law into his own hands, and very quickly obtained what he wanted. Owing, however, to the impracticability of adapting the British 3-inch gun to the French lorry mounting, a new design was got out, the gun platform being mounted on a single pair of wheels, which, with the axle, was detachable when the gun came into action, and of which component parts, such as plates, pivots, blocks, covers, catches, limber connections, were forthcoming from Crewe.

Thanks once again to the courtesy of General Gallieni, who agreed to supply "thirty-four of the famous French 75-millimetre guns and twenty thousand shells with fuses complete," Sir Percy Scott finally had at his disposal a total of one hundred and fifty-two guns, which, although admittedly "rather a mixed lot," combined to frustrate the designs of those "airy devils" which so frequently were wont to—

"hover in the sky and pour down mischief."

As time went on, however, and when, notwithstanding the constant alertness of our gunners and the shoals of "archies" spat heavenwards in search of these enemy marauders, the persistency of the latter showed little if any sign of abatement, the idea of retaliation, or the practice of paying the enemy back in his own coin, was mooted as likely to prove the most effective method of clipping his wings, and in spite of protests from that misguided section of the community, aptly designated the "don't-hurt-poor-Germany-brigade," the clamour for retaliation, emanating from an already-too-long-suffering public became so insistent that orders were at length placed for a supply of that special form of "mischief," or medicine, known as aerial bombs, in the manufacture of which, both petrol-incendiary and high-explosive, Crewe Works was requested to assist, and which our gallant airmen were commissioned to "pour down" on fortified positions on the further side of the Hindenburg Line.

How efficacious were deemed to be the ingredients of this medicine may be gathered from the fact that in the autumn of 1917 the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway companies assembled in conclave at the request of the Air Board, and expressed their willingness to co-operate in the manufacture of aeroplanes of the bombing order. Owing, however, to the special conditions applying to the aeroplane industry, and to the fact that those responsible for the administration of our Air-policy decided, after mature consideration, that the scope for producing these machines was actually sufficient for dealing with every emergency, this additional strain was not imposed on the already heavily taxed capacity of the various locomotive workshops after all. Crewe, nevertheless, was not to be gainsaid the privilege of undertaking at least some share in the production of our heavier-than-air machines, and in the tinsmiths' and fitting shops respectively were turned out hundreds of tiny metal pressings or discs, and knuckle joints, essential for the piecing together of the wood fuselage, and on the quality of which depended so largely the lives of our pilots, to whose intrepid instinct undoubtedly "one crowded hour of glorious life" seemed at all times "worth an age without a name," but who nevertheless had no particular wish to come to grief owing to faulty material. The airman in common with the traveller—

but unlike the latter, who moves in comparative safety on terra firma, the former, throughout the length of his flying hours, literally carried his life in his hands, illustrative of which fact may be taken those vivid and realistic sketches penned by Major W. B. Bishop, V.C., who, in his little volume "Winged Warfare," jots down a few impressions of his own breathless experiences. "In the air," for instance, he says, "one did not altogether feel the human side of it. It was not like killing a man so much as just bringing down a bird;" and yet in diving after an enemy machine, "I had forgotten caution and everything else in my wild and overwhelming desire to destroy this thing that for the time being represented all Germany to me." Undeniably the heart of an airman must be "a free and a fetterless thing" to brave the combination of risks incidental to his magnetic calling, and Sir Douglas Haig has not omitted to refer in brief but glowing terms to the "splendid traditions of the British Air Service," the "development of which is a matter of general knowledge," and the combining of whose "operations with those of other arms ... has been the subject of constant study and experiment, giving results of the very highest value." In every direction "much thought had to be bestowed upon determining how new devices could be combined in the best manner with the machinery already working," and in laying stress upon this question of "effective co-operation of the different arms and services," he alludes, for instance, to "increase in the power and range of artillery," which "made the maintenance of communications constantly more difficult." It was in order to assist in the maintenance of a highly efficient system of communications that Crewe was asked to supply quantities of cart cable-drums, the several parts of which required forging, machining, and accurately fitting, and by means of which, when completed as a whole, wires could be run out at a speed of 100 yards per minute; in fact, as Sir Douglas Haig points out, "something of the extent of the constructional work required, in particular to meet the constant changes of the battle-line and the movement of head-quarters, can be gathered from the fact that as many as 6500 miles of cable-wire have been issued in a single week. The average weekly issue of such cable for the whole of 1918 was approximately 3300 miles."

Summing up his observations on mechanical contrivances in general, Sir Douglas Haig urges that "immense as the influence of these may be, they cannot by themselves decide a campaign. Their true rÔle is that of assisting the infantryman, which they have done in a most admirable manner. They cannot replace him. Only by the rifle and bayonet of the infantryman can the decisive victory be won."

But surely the rifle itself, it may pardonably be contended, is nothing if not a mechanical contrivance? Granted always that without the pressure of the infantryman's finger on the trigger, the thrust of his arm behind the bayonet, the rifle is incapable of deciding a campaign, equally self-evident is the fact that the infantryman is helpless to win the decisive victory without the aid of the rifle.

Side by side, too, with the rifle, and yet another mechanical contrivance to receive "a mention," is the machine-gun, of which the "immense influence" as an injunct indispensable to the infantryman may be gauged from the statement that "from a proportion of one gun to approximately 500 infantrymen in 1914, our establishment of machine guns and Lewis guns had risen at the end of 1918 to one machine gun or Lewis gun to approximately 20 infantrymen." It was in order to bring about this enormous increase in the number of machine guns, that millwrights were sent from Crewe in the summer of 1915 at the urgent request of Mr. Lloyd George (then Minister of Munitions) to install in some newly erected works in Birmingham the machinery necessary for their manufacture. Crewe may therefore be permitted to claim a certain degree of credit for the final issue; for, in addition to furthering the output of Lewis guns which, as we know, assisted the infantryman in so admirable a manner, she was also responsible for the various extremely delicate gauges necessary for the manufacture of rifles, which in turn enabled the infantryman to win the decisive victory.

Invaluable as mechanical contrivances have been in giving "a greater driving power to war," their sinister aspect cannot in any way be veiled; for, as has been only too apparent, "the greater strength of modern field defences, and the power and precision of modern weapons, the multiplication of machine guns, trench-mortars, and artillery of all natures, the employment of gas, and the rapid development of the aeroplane as a formidable agent of destruction against both men and material, all combined to increase the price to be paid for victory."

Sir Douglas Haig estimates the total number of British casualties "in all theatres of war, killed, wounded, missing and prisoners, including native troops, as being approximately three millions (3,076,388)."

The killed, as Napoleon has said, "are the only loss that can never be replaced." The missing—one invariably shudders when considering what may have been their fate. Significant, for instance, is the reproduction of a letter from an enemy officer who writes—(cp. the Times, April 11th, 1917)—"I have been entrusted with a task of which every good German should be proud. Eight days ago we left France with 400 British.... On arriving at Frankfurt we discovered that we had lost on the journey 380." As to the lot of those who, taken prisoner, were nevertheless permitted to exist, we have only to refer for enlightenment to the report of the Government Committee on Wittenberg Camp, dated April 6th, 1916. Two extracts only may be allowed to suffice. "The state of the prisoners beggars description. Major Priestley (one survivor of six sent to replace the German medical staff who abandoned the camp on the outbreak of typhus) found them gaunt, of a peculiar grey pallor, and verminous. Their condition, in his own words, was deplorable." Ultimately the Committee were "forced to the conclusion that the terrible sufferings and privations of the afflicted prisoners during the period under review are directly chargeable to the deliberate cruelty and neglect of the German officials."

Of the wounded, those who merit the largest share of commiseration are undoubtedly the blind. But whatever the nature of the misfortune of those afflicted, "in spite of the large numbers dealt with, there has been," as Sir Douglas Haig reminds us, "no war in which the resources of science have been utilised so generously and successfully for the prevention of disease, or for the quick evacuation and careful tending of the sick and wounded."

The experience acquired, over a period of 35 years in the joiners' shop at Crewe Works, in the manufacture of artificial limbs, for the use of the Company's own employÉs crippled as a result of accidents sustained in the performance of their duties, was destined to become a national asset of inestimable value during the war; models of the most approved design being demonstrated to the War Office authorities, and subsequently adopted for the use and benefit of men crippled in the service of their country.

In the years preceding the war, while the common enemy was busily engaged in sharpening the sword and toasting Der Tag, amongst the few so-called cranks who, even as voices crying in the wilderness, ventured to dispatiate upon self-defence, defence of country, invasion, and other similar bogies in the cupboard, one may recall the theory of "one of the most distinguished of that younger school of sea-officers who kept urging in and out of season that we must get out of the idea that naval defence is one thing and army defence another; for when war comes, success will depend upon their perfect co-ordination and co-operation."

If in only a minor degree—for those who go down to the sea in ships are necessarily many in number, and the business which they do in great waters is of an extremely varied nature—Crewe was nevertheless called upon to put this theory into practice in the land and sea war that burst upon us in 1914; and one of the mechanical contrivances which was destined to play an inordinately important part in securing this "perfect co-ordination and co-operation" as between the land and sea forces of the country, and for various essential component parts of which Crewe became responsible, was the "Paravane;" and the paravane, being by nature something entirely novel, was ipso facto one of those devices which had to fight the War Office, or the Admiralty, as the case might be, before it got a chance of fighting the enemy.

Primarily devised for the purpose of subverting the submarine peril, the paravane (the invention of Acting-Commander Burney) was later adapted for the protection of vessels against mines. An extremely interesting and lucid account of this mechanical contrivance, from the pen of Mr. R. F. McKay, is to be found in Engineering, under date of September 19th, 1919.

Mr. McKay tells us that there were various types of paravanes, known respectively as the explosive, the protector, and the mine-sweeping paravane.

Briefly, the device was a torpedo-shaped body, which, towed by a suitable cable either from the bows or stern of a ship, maintained its equilibrium in the water by means of a large steel plane near its head, and horizontal and vertical fins near its tail, the thrust of the water on the plane when the vessel is in motion carrying the paravane away from the fore and aft centre line of the vessel. Depth mechanism was fitted in the tail of the paravane, and consisted of a horizontal rudder actuated by a hydrostatic valve, i.e. a valve which is operated by difference in water pressure due to any change in depth. The explosive paravane was towed from the stern, and the charge of T.N.T. which it contained could be detonated either by impact, or by an excessive load coming on to the cable, or by a current of electricity controlled from the ship.

The protector or mine-sweeping paravanes were similar contrivances in that they were towed, and maintained their position in the water by similar means. They were, however, towed from the bows of the ship, and instead of carrying an explosive charge, they were fitted with a bracket resembling a pair of jaws, in which were fixed two saw-edged steel blades; and it was in the manufacture of these brackets, which were forged under the drop-hammer, that Crewe was engaged. "Two paravanes," as Mr. McKay explains, "are towed, one on either side of the vessel, ... and the action of the protector-gear is simple. The paravane towing-wires foul the mooring-wire of any mine which might strike the vessel, but misses any mine which is too deeply anchored. The speed of the vessel causes the mine and its sinker to be deflected down the 'wedge' and away from the vessel until the mine mooring-wire reaches the paravane," which wire "passing into the cutter-jaws is speedily severed; the sinker drops to the bottom of the sea, whilst the mine floats to the surface well clear of the ship, where it can be seen and destroyed by rifle fire."

The jerky sawing action of the mine mooring-cable, on reaching the jaws of the paravane, was, perforce, extremely detrimental to the teeth of the cutter-blades; consequently it was invariably the practice to haul the paravane aboard the ship and examine the blades immediately after a mine had been trapped and destroyed. The peril of pottering about, unprotected, in a mine-field must be patent to all, particularly to those who happen to be doing the pottering; hence it was absolutely essential that brackets and blades should be so accurately machined and fitted that the latter, on being removed, could be replaced in an instant by "spares" and the paravane dropped straight back into the sea.

Speaking in the House of Commons (cp. the Times, March 21st, 1918), Sir Eric Geddes, then First Lord of the Admiralty, said that for the twelve months of unrestricted warfare from February 1st, 1917, to January 31st, 1918, the actual figures of vessels sunk by submarine action, including those damaged and ultimately abandoned, amounted to roughly six million tons; that the (then) total world's shipping tonnage (exclusive of enemy ships) was forty-two millions; and that the percentage of net loss to British tonnage was 20 per cent.

Mr. McKay, too, in his article previously quoted, gives some interesting figures which tend to recall the gloomy days of rationing cards, and help us to realise how deeply we are indebted to Commander Burney and his paravanes for assuring us to the bitter end our daily, if slightly curtailed, means of subsistence. "It is computed," writes Mr. McKay, "that the total loss in shipping due to submarine warfare is about £1,000,000,000. Hence, working on the certainties, each submarine destroyed was responsible for about £5,000,000 worth of damage. Accepting this figure as a basis, it may be said that the explosive paravanes saved further damage being inflicted on our shipping to the extent of about £25,000,000." Reverting next to the protector paravane, "there were," we are told, "about 180 British warships fitted with the installation. Assuming that the value of warship tonnage is placed at the very low average figure of £100 per ton, the value of the ships saved was above £50,000,000;" and a further point which cannot be ignored is that undoubtedly "the moral effect of the loss of these vessels would have been stupendous." Again, in regard to merchant ships, "if the ratio

mines cut
——————
ships fitted

for these were only one quarter the ratio for warships, the saving to the nation would be about £100,000,000 sterling's worth of merchant ships and cargoes." Finally, "from all the records available, the Allied countries are indebted to the paravane invention for saving ships and cargoes to the value of approximately £200,000,000. In addition, the number of lives saved must be a very large figure."

Few and far between are the prophets who have any honour in their own country, and Admiral Sir Percy Scott proved no exception to the rule when, prior to the war (cp. the Times, June 5th, 1914), he wrote that "the introduction of vessels that swim under the water has, in my opinion, entirely done away with the utility of the ships that swim on the top of the water."

So comprehensive a contention was bound to come as something in the nature of a shock to those who were accustomed to regard the Royal Navy of England as "its greatest defence and ornament; its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of our island," and certainly the attribute "entirely" must be considered as being of rather too sweeping a nature, for, serious though the submarine menace became during the world-war, the under-sea boat cannot claim to have swept the face of the waters of anything approaching the total number of ships that swam on the top. There is no doubt, however, but that, not only from the German point of view, but from our own as well, the submarine became an adjunct of the very first importance, and herein, again, was the all-round practical ability of Crewe Works called upon to assist. Bearings for submarine propeller-shafts (commonly known as reaper-bearings) were urgently required, each shaft working in no fewer than sixteen bearings, of which the caps were to be made not only interchangeable, but reversible as well, so exacting were the demands in the Admiralty specification.

Indisputably Crewe was "doing her bit," and by their "dauntless spirit," by their "incessant toil," did the mass of employÉs engaged within the Works enable Mr. Cooke to convince the world at large that England, no longer "la Perfide Albion," was worthy rather to be named "la Loyale Angleterre."