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Lochinvar since the outbreak of war. Among them have been 500 Skippers, R.N.R., but to-day the newly-commissioned officers all belong to the R.N.V.R. No officer who has passed the Lochinvar course has been found incapable of doing the duty required of him, and none has ever applied for transfer to another branch before sitting for his examination.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the naval side of the war is the increasingly important part the R.N.V.R. officers are playing in all branches of the Service. In the last war there were very few in the minesweepers and there was a tendency throughout the Navy to regard them as amateurs. To-day the fine work they are doing is appreciated by their brother officers of both the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve, and nowhere is it more valuable than in the minesweepers, the majority of which are now commanded by officers of the R.N.V.R., who have thus become entitled to regard themselves as much an integral part of the Fleet as officers who specialize in submarines or naval aircraft.

All the more credit is due to these young officers because, before they joined the Navy, the majority were landsmen who knew nothing of the sea and they have had to earn the respect of their men. On a single course in H.M.S. Lochinvar recently, the R.N.V.R. officers under instruction included those who in civilian life had been a Local Government clerk, a surveyor's assistant, a chemist, a shop manager, a schoolmaster, a chartered accountant, a printer, a bank cashier, a glove manufacturer, a cine-technician, a salesman in the woollen trade, an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, a fur-buyer, a display artist, a fiction writer, an architect, a cabinetmaker and an Australian sheep-farmer.

There is a Negro proverb " New broom sweep clean, but de old broom know de corner." The new brooms of the R.N.V.R. and the old brooms of the R.N.R. are proving a formidable sweeping combination for the German minelayers.