Naval Occasion

Comfortably seated by their radios last week, hundreds of thousands of Britons waited patiently for a description of the second most important event of the Coronation season, the fireworks and illumination of the greatest naval review since the World War. For the scene of the broadcast, British Broadcasting Corp. had chosen the most hallowed deck in the Royal Navy, Nelson's flagship the Victory in whose cockpit he died, lying in dry-dock at Portsmouth, two miles from the five-mile quadruple row of 160 of the world's fighting ships (see map). For announcer the B.B.C. chose Lieut. Commander Tom Woodrooffe, because he had spent the three years of his active service doing staff work on the Victory and because such an important paper as the Daily Mail recently described Commander Woodrooffe's broadcasts of the Berlin Olympic Games and the funeral of George V as "the most colorful and most descriptive efforts ever heard on the air.

" Over the radio boomed the Commander's soggy voice:

"The whole fleet is lit up!--er--by lights! It is like fairyland. The ships are covered by fairy lights. . . . Even the destroyers are lit up! The big boats are lit up!

"It's all right ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling the people around me to shut their damned mouths. . . . Everything is lit up. The U. S. battleship New York provides a particularly brilliant spectacle. ... In a minute they are going to fire some rockets. . . .

"The magician has waved his wand! Now there is no fleet here at all! No damned fleet at all, damme!"

At this point a suave voice from London intruded: "We are now taking you back to the Carleton Hotel, for dance music." What befuddled Commander Woodrooffe was trying to describe was the manner in which, at a single blink from the flagship Nelson, every ship in the review suddenly flashed out with myriad lines of lights which, at another signal, blacked out completely. A moment later at a third signal hundreds of searchlights swept the night firmament in amazing patterns.

In less than 24 hours "The fleet is all lit up!" had become the joyful cry of all Britain. Undergraduates, shopgirls, peers, clubmen and pub-crawlers were repeating, "The fleet is all lit up!" ad nauseam.

Shrewdest of all were the advertising directors of United Kingdom Tobacco Co., makers of "Grey's" cigarets, a somewhat swank but inexpensive brand. In 48 hours London newspapers appeared with quarter and half-page advertisements flaunting largely the company's new slogan: "The Fleet is All Lit Up!" And in small type below the explanation: "They're smoking Grey's cigarets." Abashed Commander Woodrooffe explained: "I was so overcome by the occasion that I burst into tears and found I could say no more." To be sure that announcers would not be overcome with emotion on public occasions, the B. B. C. announced last week that henceforth announcers of great events would travel in pairs, might have physical examinations.

Even without Commander Woodrooffe, the review that took place earlier that day was a naval occasion no Briton should forget. Between Portsmouth on the Hampshire shore and the green Isle of Wight lie the most famed yachting waters in the world. Here in a carefully marked out area of 24 sq. mi. were assembled 277 ships ranging from the world's greatest warship, the 42,000-ton battle cruiser Hood, to a proud delegation of British herring trawlers. Wardroom statisticians quickly figured that the 143 British warships in line alone displaced 670,000 tons, cost British taxpayers $675,000,000.

King George, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth reached Portsmouth the evening before, spent the night on the 38-year-old royal yacht, Victoria & Albert. Early next morning newshawks with binoculars could see bareheaded Princess Elizabeth in pink, pattering beside her father round the quarterdeck for a brisk after breakfast constitutional. At 10:30 a.m. with the cool skies rapidly clouding over, the first admirals' barges began to arrive for an official reception, and as more cocked hats and gold lace than Portsmouth harbor had seen for two decades assembled under the yacht's awning the Royal Marines Band burst into Irving Berlin's well-known ballad:

We joined the Navy, to see the world, And what did we see? We saw the sea.

At 3:05 p.m. a warning gun was sounded and the royal procession steamed out to the reviewing grounds. In the van rode Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin on the little steamer Patricia. Not as a Prime Minister but as an Elder Brother of Trinity House, he wore a uniform very much like that of a British admiral. Trinity House is the ancient organization still responsible for British lighthouses and pilotage. At all royal naval reviews the Elder Brethren's yacht has the right to pilot the royal yacht down the line.

For the first time women were on the bridge of a ship of the royal navy at a formal review. Queen Elizabeth, wearing smoked glasses, stood with her elder daughter on the bridge of the Victoria & Albert, near but not beside King George who stood out alone, clearly visible to every ship in the line, saluting like an automaton for two full hours. Near Princess Elizabeth, doing his best to answer her questions, was King George's cousin and personal naval A.D.C., Commander Lord Louis Mountbatten. The Queen's dark glasses were unnecessary. It was not raining but visibility was so poor that only two or three ships of the line could be seen at one time.

Behind the royal yacht came the Admiralty yacht Enchantress bristling with Sea Lords, a number of chartered ocean liners, bearing 3,000 favored British taxpayers, and at the rear', 3 1/2-miles behind the royal yacht, the splashing paddle-wheel steamer Whippingham, bearing 300 disgusted newskawks who scarcely saw the royal yacht at all.

Past such colorful names as Skipjack, Puffin, Foxhound, Esk, Fearless, Wild Swanand Escapade the royal flotilla passed, with each ship, swathed in flags, banging out a 21-gun salute, her crew hand in hand, lining the rails.

Black as caviar was the shore with crowds squinting through telescopes, among them what British police admitted was the largest collection of foreign spies and counterspies ever to attend a British function. Of the British ships in line they were particularly anxious to see the new fast torpedo-carrying motor boats, the square-sterned anti-submarine net-layers Protector and Guardian and the antiaircraft ships, Coventry and Curlew. Old light cruisers about ready to be decommissioned, these ships have had, their superstructures swept clear and their decks jammed with batteries of the very latest electrophonic anti-aircraft guns and high-powered searchlights.

What interested the foreign agents most . was the last thing the royal yacht passed before anchoring at the head of the fleet, the line of foreign ships. Italy haughtily boycotted the review, and Leftist Spain, which had reserved an anchorage for the little destroyer Ciscar, was unable to send it because of pressing engagements with Generalissimo Franco, but 17 other foreign ships were present, starting with the little Estonian submarine Kalev and ending with the head of the line, the modernized U. S. battleship New York, flagship of the U. S. fleet during the World War. For a day retired Admiral Hugh Rodman, naval delegate to the Coronation, was back on her quarterdeck, flying his four-starred flag at her masthead.

Greatest hush-hush ship in line was not the Soviet battleship Marat whose comrade sailors spent most of their time exercising on parallel bars on deck, nor the Nazi pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spec which served beer to visitors, but the pride of the French navy, the Dunkerquc. Only official visitors were allowed on board, and even they were rushed below decks as quickly as possible. Though only half the size of Britain's ponderous Hood, the newly completed Dunkerque, spies insist, is the fastest and most heavily armored battleship afloat.

Next afternoon just as the ancient twin-funneled royal yacht sailed off toward Portsmouth harbor, there broke from its yardarm the little signal flags dear to every sailor's heart. By the tactics of 100 years ago they meant, "Splice the Main-Brace," i.e., repair the stays holding up the middle of a frigate's three masts. By venerable naval usage "Splice the Main-Brace" means to issue an extra round of navy rum to every man jack aboard ship. Again the fleet lit up.

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