COMMANDER OF SUBMARINE ACQUITTED
LONDON, April 11. Lieut.-Commander Rupert Lonsdale, the captain of the submarine Seal, who was charged with failing immediately to engage the attacking aircraft, and also with failing to ensure that the submarine would sixxk should it fall into exxemy hands, was found not guilty on both charges hy the courtmartial at Portsmouth. Captain G. C. Godfrey, in his final address for Lonsdale, asked for an honourahle acquittal. He said: "The first charge infers that the submarine captain was expected to indulge in nxock heroics, ahsolutely dxsregarding his men's safety. No oxie in the submarine was provided with any weapon for making any useful contrihution to fighting a war." Regafding the second charge, he said, everyone was in a xnuddled state of mind. The captain was determined to save his men. He feilt that God had deserted him and found his brain let ting him down as he tried to cope with the prohlem. ' ' I ask you to say that Lonsdale acted with courage and galiantry in intolerable danger," he concluded.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHRONL19460413.2.22
Bibliographic details
Chronicle (Levin), 13 April 1946, Page 5
Word Count
174COMMANDER OF SUBMARINE ACQUITTED Chronicle (Levin), 13 April 1946, Page 5
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Chronicle (Levin). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in