L-AND AND WATER: 
January 6, '1916., 
fire control invention. In the first period -she was 
connnanded by Captain Frederick -Ogilvy who died 
of typhoid before the end of the year. No man at 
that time stood higher as an authority on gunnery, 
and his loss was so deeply felt that the honour was 
paid him of founding an annual prize in his mem- 
ory. Curiously enough Ogilvy had not been 
trained as a gunnery officer but as a torpedo-man. 
But it was his good fortune to have served under 
Sir Percy Scott when he was initiating the renaiss- 
ance of gunlaying on the China station, and he 
became Scott's riglit hand man in working out and 
developing the appliances, necessary for teaching 
gunlayers to overcome the initial difliculty of naval 
marksmanship, \'iz., keeping the gun steady on 
the target while the ship is moving. Ogilvy un- 
doubtedly possessed a mechanical and scientific 
genius of a very high order, and once started by 
Scott on the study of gunnery, he soon passed be- 
yond the rudiments, and began the investigation 
of the far more subtle and far more important 
department of fire control. In the South African 
War he had been in command of a battery of 12 
pounder guns, so that he realised from the first 
that no matter how perfected the art of gun laying 
might be, it would be less use for war unless it 
were combined with a development of fire control 
adequate to the conditions of action. In 1907 
and 1908 he was in command of the Revenue \ust 
when the first eftorts to find a system for long 
range firing were being tested practically. All 
these systems were more or less based upon the 
theory first instrumentally embodied in the gear 
we had tried unsuccessfully in the Jupilcr. in 
1905-6. In 1909 we had carried the thing to a 
much farther point, but we were still far short of 
action requirements. The main deficiency of our 
igog system was that it was designed to deal only 
with the conditions when the firing ship kept a 
S^tcady course. It was really Ogilvy who brushed 
difficulties on one side, and forced us on the only 
path that could lead to success. 
. • Had he lived there can be little question that 
the history of naval gunnery would have taken a 
very different course to that which in fact it did. 
He had been designated to the command of 
Excellent before his death, and it was intended that 
his appointinent should coincide with the co- 
ordinal ioi of all the gunnery schools and establish- 
ments. Already in 1909 there was a marked con- 
fiict in policy between the Inspector of Target 
Practice and that of the Director of Naval 
Ordnance. The Inspector of Target Practice at 
that time, Sir Richard Peirse, assisted with his 
Staff — of whom, by the way, Captain Eric Back 
was chief — at every battle practice held by the 
Fleet in home waters or in the Mediterranean. 
He thus became the depository of the Fleet's 
experience in long-range firing, and the one man 
who knew exactly what was required to bring long 
range gmmery to battle worthiness. But while 
he had the knowledge, he had no authority what- 
c\er vis a vis t) the Board of .Admiralt}'. Officially, 
the only adviser to the Board in fire control was 
the Director of Naval Ordnance, whose practical 
experience in the matter might be, and for some 
years indeed actually was, negligible. The 
spectacle therefore presented itself of the experts 
in the Fleet being in absolute opposition to the 
official policy of Whitehall in the most vital of all 
points of preparation for war. The reorganisation 
that was to follow on Ogilvy 's ap])ointmcnt to 
Whale Island was to have terminated this coulUct. 
The direction of methods of naval gunnery was to 
be dissoci^tod from the direction of the provision 
of naval ordnance, ammunition and mountings — 
subjects quite large and arduous enough to mono- 
polise the time and attention of even the ablest 
officer. But Ogilvy's death was followed by 
changes at Whitehall, and no alteration was made. 
The conflict between the Inspector of Target 
Practice and Whitehall consequently became-'more 
and more marked until, in 1913, it was terminated 
by the abolition of the Inspectorship. It was a 
curious way out of the difficulty. For four, 5"ears 
there had been an official representative protesting 
in the name of the Fleet against the retrograde 
policy of Whitehall. The obvious thing, it would 
seem, would be to have ensured that Whitehall was 
in harmony with the experts. It certainly was 
one way of obtaining peace to secure that the 
experts should be silenced. But it was not the 
way to secure the right gunnery. 
A BREAKER OF RECORDS. 
A few months before Ogilvy died. Natal, 
with Eric Back on board, broke all records in the 
gunlayers' test. William James was Gunnery 
Lieutenant. So great was the sensation created by 
this performance that James was shifted from 
Natal to Whale Island, so as to make Ogilvy's 
training methods available to the entire Fleet. 
But under Ogilvy's successor, Captain W. R. Hall. 
Natal in igio surpassed even her own records and 
put up a performance which it is safe to say can 
never be beaten. When Captain Hall was com- 
missioned Xo Queen Mary, the former Gunnery 
Lieutenant of Natal became his Commander, 
and the Queen Mary forthwith proceeded to break 
all gunnery records as successfully as Natal had. 
Hall was succeeded by Captain Greatorex, and 
throughout all three commissions Natal was 
easily the smartest and most brilliant ship in her 
.squadron. One of the secrets of her successes 
was that Captain, wardroom, and men seemed 
always actuated by a common purpose, a common 
spirit, and a common aim. It is a tradition that I 
have no doubt Eric Back carried on without 
difficulty, for he, like his predecessors in that 
devoted ship, was one of those who command and 
lead naturally and easily, because their accom- 
plishments and character make their leadership 
seem both natural and inevitable. 
If Natal was a happy ship she was a 
singularly ill-fated one. She lost an officer killed 
on board during her first commission. Ogilvy, on 
the whole the most brilliant man I have e\ cr 
known,. died as I have said, before he had been in 
her a year. Gathorne Hardy, who was Com- 
mander under both Ogilvy and Hall, died from 
blood poisoning within a few months of Ogilvy. 
Hardy was a man who, everyone was agreed, 
must have gone, had he lived, to the very top of 
the naval hierarchy. Gifted with quite extra- 
ordinary personal cliarm and a manner whose 
gentleness was almost feminine, he possessed an 
authority over brother officers and men of the 
most convincing kind imaginable. ^ And now Eric 
Back has gone as the result of an accident, that 
might just as well lia\'e happened in peace as in 
war. It certainly is curious that a ship that was 
only commissioned eight years ago should have 
lost three such brilliant and exceptional officers 
as Ogilvy, Gathorne Hardy and Back, each by 
sheer misadventure. Such are the vicissitudes of 
the naval career. ARTHUR. POLLEN. 
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