With Davy Jones

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

As the sun was shining with full splendor upon the sea which surrounds the Scilly Isles, a flight of airplanes soared into the air from their seagoing carriers. For several miles they whirred their way through the morning stillness to a spot where H. M. S. Monarch bobbed like a bottle on the rippling swell. As each machine passed over, a large, fat bomb was dropped; for the Monarch was to be sunk in accordance with the terms of the Washington Arms Treaty.

After the airplanes had returned home to roost, the light cruisers Carysfort, Caledon, Curacoa, Calliope and the destroyer Vectis pounded the

Monarch with their barking 6-inch guns; but the condemned ship's 11-inch steel gun protection withstood bravely the clattering shells.

Next into the fray came the majestic dreadnoughts Hood, Repulse, Ramillies, Royal Oak, Royal Sovereign, Resolution, Revenge. From a distance of over ten miles, their 15-inch guns belched their destructive salvos of heavy shells, and at the end of the ninth hour, the Monarch lay riddled in Davy Jones' locker.

A U. S. journal ignorantly made comparisons. It told how U S. Army bombers had sent the Ostfriedland to the bottom "in much less time;" but how, on the other hand, the sinking of the Washington last December (TIME, Dec. 8) had taken three days.

The question of sinking the ships in record time does not enter into the picture. First off all, the attacked ship is made as difficult as possible to sink by closing the bulkheads, etc. Second, shells fired contain reduced charges of explosives, because they are mainly intended to pierce and not to explode. Third, results of the shooting are carefully recorded and this requires time, especially when the stricken ship has to be visited in order that the effect of armor-piercing shells can be accurately ascertained.