UNPROTECTED FLEET.

When this spectacle was arranged, it was suggested in The Daily Telegraph that the Admiralty would be well-advised to issue a report of a non-technical character, so as to warn the public against variegated accounts of what really happened. For all I know the Admiralty may be intending to take this course, but, in the meantime – almost simultaneously by a curious coincidence – reports have appeared in a number of newspapers which are calculated to disturb the public. A good deal of embroidery has been added to what is, after all, a very simple story, and it has even been suggested that the attacking aeroplanes put up a smoke screen, whereas they did nothing of the kind. What happened may be suggested by a parallel. The Fleet, on this occasion, may be represented as a man who, for his own purposes, ventures out into a heavy rain storm without a macintosh or an umbrella, with the result that he gets wet. The Atlantic Fleet was absolutely unprotected from the air attack and, as might have been expected, hits were recorded. There was nothing in the nature of a surprise, and the aeroplanes were, indeed, sighted about fifteen minutes before they fired their torpedoes. The pilots advanced on the Fleet with the full assurance that, in any event, neither they nor their aeroplanes would be injured. What happened was exactly what it was known would happen.