ROYAL BIRTHDAY

Chronicle (Levin), 4 August 1949, Page 7

ROYAL BIRTHDAY

eveuts would not be due for further promotion until 1954. Most of the Amethyst Js complement are from the West Country, and when tlie flagship Jamaica greeted her iiortli of Formosa she flew the signal " Wel come back, Tiddyoggy. " "'Tiddv oggy, " in West Country dialeet, means a Cornish pasty, mueh favoured by naval men at Devonport. The Admiralty today published a full list of the erew of the mmethysi, and revealed that tlieir average age is 23 years. Five of her seamen boys are only 17, and the coxswain, Leslie Frank, who, was at the wheel the w-hole seven and a lialf liours during the trip down the Yangtze, is known as "Daddy" to the erew and is 42. "Mv eyes were a bit tired lialf way down," he said, " but I took some pills to keep myself fullv 'alert. The captaiu was on the bridge the whole time. \Ye had no trouble Aitli sandbanks. The shallowest water we encountered was about four fathoms, and there we had some trouble with the steering. ; 7 ' Reports from Hong Kong state that the Communists believed that the damage sull'ered by the Amethyst would preveut her reaching her scheduled top speed of 2U knots, aiul that tliey would therefore have no difficulty in keeping her under fire if she moveu. At times during the passage to the sea the engine-room stalf worked the speed up to 24 knots. A Shanghai message states that by Alonday evening no news of the Amethyst 's escape had been published ih any of the Chinese vernacular newspapers or in the, British-owned Xorth C'hina Daily Kews. This is believed to be due to fear that if the story of the escape was later disproved the Communists would again uccuse tlie uewspapers of rumour-mongering, aud exact peualties from them.