£17,335 FOR SINKING GERMANS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2916, 31 October 1916, Page 5

£17,335 FOR SINKING GERMANS

FALKLAND BATTLE BOUNTY.

Over £17,000 in prize bounties was awarded in the Prize Court recently by Sir Samuel Evans to our naval heroes for sinking .enemy ships. The claims were made by Commander Maxwell Anderson, who by virtue of his temporary position was allowed to appear at the Bar in naval uniform and without wig and gown. The first case ?? s "J?, , the matter of to ° Battle of the Falkland Islands," and was the first case of a fleet action before the Court. -~_ The.applicants were those in the British warships

Invincible Carnarvon Glasgow Inflexible , Cornwall Kent They sank tho German vessels Scharnborst Gneisenau Nurnberg Leipzig, carrying 2432 men. > At the rate of £5 per head the British sailors claimed prize bounties amounting to £12,160. i On Novomber L 1914 (counsel explained) the two British ships Cape of Good Hope and the Monmouth were sunk by the Germans. "But whatever others'thought" of this twist' of tho lion's tail, it appeared that the German admiral von Spee had no false illusions himself. At that day it was clean fighting, and when the German admiral took his victorious fleet into Valparaiso he refused to drink the toast of 'Damnation to the British Navy,' and announced that ho had a premonition that his end was very near. And on December 8 it came."

His Lordship made an order for the Bounties claimed.

The crew of the El 9 (Commander F. N. A. Cromie), which sank the German cruiser Undine in the Baltic on November 7, 1915, wore awarded £1410. There were 282 men in the enemy ship. The sinking of the Emden by the Australian warship Sydney was the subject of another claim. Sir Samuel Evans awarded £1985. based on the crew of the Emden being 397.