LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2935, 22 November 1916, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A SLANDER REFUTED

Sir, —Some time ago, and again lately, a story has been persistently circulated to the effect that after H.JI.S. Bulwark was destroyed by explosion at Sh'derness, the captain, who was 011 shore at the time, was appointed to another ship; that this ship was also destroyed by explosion, and that lie again escaped by. being oil shore, and that after this he was arrested, tried _ by court-martial, and shot. Wishing to know if there was any truth in this, I wrote to my brother, who had been Admiral Superintendent at Chatham at the time of the Bulwark's explosion. He absolutely contradicted the story, in which he said there was not a grain of truth; and \thafc so far from the captain having escaped the fate of the crew of the Bulwark, fragments of his body, had been found, which were identified; and, moreover, that there had been no execution during his term of office. A little while ago, however, the story with circumstantial detail was brought out from Home, and again circulated out here. I then wrote to a friend in the English House of Commons, Mr. A. W. Soames, member for W. Norfolk, asking him to ascertain the truth from the Admiralty. I received to-day the following answer: — ■ "I submitted your letter to Macnamara, who is' Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, and I cnclose his reply, which I liopo will enable you to put an end to the abominable story that is going about." The enclosure was as follows "Dear Soames, "I return the enclosure to your letter of September 11. I am advised that the matter referred to therein is fiction." I think it only fair to the memory of a 'brave man who died in the service of his country that this contradiction should bo niade, public.—l am, etc., G. E. ANSON. November 20, 1916.