Admiralty Delays Held Cause Of North’s Dismissal

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 11

Admiralty Delays Held Cause Of North’s Dismissal

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Apr. 30. The opinion that Admiral Sir Dudley North was dismissed from his post as Commander-in-Chief, North Atlantic, in September, 1940, because of confusion and delay at the Admiralty, is expressed in a book just published, “That Day at Gibraltar,” by - the Australian journalist, Noel Monks, now services correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” Reviewers call it a last broadside in Admiral North’s long nava] career in a final attempt to clear his name of a 16-year-old disgrace. Monks’s book is based on Admiral North’s four sea chests of secret signals and letters from war-time leaders. Admiral North is seeking an announcement by the Admiralty that he was wrongly dismissed following the sailing of six French warships unhindered from Toulon out of the- Mediterranean under the eyes of his Gibraltar headquarters. The ships were bound for Casablanca at Admiral Darlan’s orders. Admiral North claims his orders clearly instructed him not to interfere with the French ships. Even if they had not, he says he had no force capable of stopping them. For 16 years, Admiral North’s pleas for a court-martial or inquiry into the circumstances have been refused. In 1953. 13 years after his dismissal, a deputation of five Admirals of the Fleet asked the First Lord of the Ad-

miralty, Mr J. P. L. Thomas (now Lord Cilcennin) to set up an inquiry. They pointed out to him that it was widely believed Admiral North was unjustly punished and if he deserved censure his punishment was harsh and excessive. Their request was refused. They were told no court-martial or inquiry could alter the fact that North had lost the Admiralty’s confidence. Monks says a signal from Tangier warning the Admiralty that the French ships were about to move, although marked immediate, took four days to decipher. Consequently the Admiralty was not aware of the movements of the French ships in time for action. He asks whether there was a conspiracy of silence at the Admiralty to withhold from Admiral North the fact that because of a grievous blunder at the Admiralty, vital signals had been hopelessly delayed. “One would have thought the delayed signals would have been put before Admiral North,” he says. “The inescapable conclusion is that it was convenient to forget them.”