sea will ensure a large number being actually in harbour at their respective bases, or within call while going to or returning from their stations. These destroyers, though not specially stationed with that object, will always form, in conjunction with submarines, a very effective second line of defence in the improbable event of such a second line being required.
To understand thoroughly the small chance of an invasion from the other side of the North Sea being successful, it is necessary to put oneself in the place of the officer who has to undertake the responsibility of conducting it.
His first difficulty will be to consider how he is to get his great fleet of transports to sea without any information of it leaking out through neutral nations or otherwise. Next, he will consider that somewhere within wireless call we have nearly double the number of battleships and cruisers that he can muster, besides a swarm of destroyers.
He has probably very vague and unreliable information as to their positions, which are constantly changing.
His unwieldy fleet will cover many square miles of water, and as all the ships will be obliged to carry lights, for mutual safety, they will be visible
