Cinderellas of the fleet . ty weather. Frequently they were forced to ride out stormswhich for cussedness and perseverance have our own brand beatenforty ways. The shallow North Sea is bad enough at any time, butin the winter it is downright wicked. But the M. made good. Not only in the actual work ofpatrolling for submarines but in countless other ways as well—sweepingfor mines in the channels ahead of ships, convoying merchant vessels,towing the deadly Q type paravane for lurking subs, laying mines,co-operating with air craft—in the Channel, in the North Sea, in theMediterranean, at the
Cinderellas of the fleet . ty weather. Frequently they were forced to ride out stormswhich for cussedness and perseverance have our own brand beatenforty ways. The shallow North Sea is bad enough at any time, butin the winter it is downright wicked. But the M. made good. Not only in the actual work ofpatrolling for submarines but in countless other ways as well—sweepingfor mines in the channels ahead of ships, convoying merchant vessels,towing the deadly Q type paravane for lurking subs, laying mines,co-operating with air craft—in the Channel, in the North Sea, in theMediterranean, at the Dardanelles and in the Adriatic. The ubiquitous M. did what the other ships could not do anddid it well. Their work attracted the attention of the French andItalians, and large orders were placed for Standard motors and inmany cases for completed boats which brought the total number ofM. up to 720. In this connection it might be interesting to read what the skipper THE cixi)i:i<i-,.\s OF Till-: 21. Assembling the M. Even the planking of these boats was standardizedand cut to templates before shipping from the Bayonne plant. of one of the M. has to say about them. Seven Pennant,writing in the Yachting Monthly, says: Our sympathetic friends and relations on shore have often ex-pressed pity for the hardships of the winter of wet and cold, but noone outside the M. themselves have ever realized what is reallythe greatest hardship of all. It is summed up in the word , have you ever tried to do a continual course of Swedish exer-cises from, say. 4 a. m. until 6 p. m. with no interval for food? I takeit you have not, but if you can try and imagine to yourself the bodilyfatigue and vexation of spirit that would be produced by this form ofpenance and then add to it wind, bitter cold and, perhaps, nay prob-ably, wet, you may glean some idea of the hardships expressed bythis little two syllabled word. I might also have added a slightform
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookidcinderellaso, bookyear1920
