A WAR EPISODE.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1927, Page 4

A WAR EPISODE.

I APT. DAY'S STOHY OF SKA FIGHT. LONDON, Fell. 19. W hen Air Baldwin, the Prime Miuist I r, lit Ihe jubilee year banijuol oi’ the Chamber ul Shipping of the l Ini ted Kingdom, revealed the story of the little nirgi boat Dundee’* duel with the ("ennui: auxiliary cruiser, Leopard. in .Mureli, 1917. lie praised iho eiimmander, Cajit. S'elwyn Day. C. IT. D. 5.0.. as '‘a Sir hiehard Grenville of the Merchant Service.” Captain Day how ever. mi v., he was not the hero of that sea battle. Imt that it was Lieut. Lawson, who with live men. was sent aboard the Leopard, and lost his life. The fight took plane when {'apt. Day. whi belonged to the armed hoarding class, which went alongside doubtful ships to find out what they were, was ordered by the British cruiser Achilles to elose and examine a steamer. It proved to he the Leopard, which was Irving to slip out into the Atlantic to support tin* submarine campaign in home waters by an attack against the main trade routes. The narrative of Lieut. Lawson’s death was told by Cant. Day, who nowlives in Tvempshot Village, Basingstoke. Hainnshire.

It was a grey, cheerless day, when, from the little Dundee, T saw a big, suspicious-looking ship come over (lie horizon. We steamed towards her and asked her who she w as. She signalled hack that she was the Norwegian steamer Lena. I turned her up in Lloyd’s List. She wasn’t the Ilona. She was the German auxiliary i miser Leopard. Who was t.o go aboard this dangerous

ship ? Lieut.. Lawson volunteered. Ho sot out with five men in a small boat. Tl was a desperate risk, anil he knew it. Wo saw him pulling towards the ship. We saw him round her stern and passout of sijjjht. .V moment or two later the I.eopnrd fired a torpedo at us and the hnttle began. . . We never saw Lieut. Lawson again. lie was a liravo soul. 1 think Lieut .Lawson and his five men must have gone aboard, because wo came across another vessel an innoeont one- throe months later, and the hoarding narty we sent to her saw the boat which had carried Lieut. Lawson and his men to the Leopard. The captain said: "Wo picked it up out of the sea only 18 hours ago. Tt was drifting. In it was an empty cutlass scabbard and a full water-cask.” Had any of Ihe men been left in the lioat the water-cask would not have been full. Tv 11.'LET) BY OWN SHIP'S FILL. The lieutenant and his men must have perished under the fire of their own shin, for the Dundee hung grimly astern of the raider, pounding her with one gun until the Achilles could come to the rescue. The Leopard tried to turn broadside, so as to blow us out of the water with all her guns, hut T saw she could not train her guns astern and so I kept behind her—only half a dozen ship's lengths away. We aimed at the base of her funnel and saw the smoke was pouring out of the tattered remains of it. choking the screw, and ihe flames had set (ire ir> die woodwork. She had linns d to fill -h us of? lieforo the Achilles "sme up. but when that cruiser ivchod the snot and opened fire she 1 eeame just a pyramid of flame l . She fought pluckily. Only one of her guns was left. We ceased fire as slip was sinking, giving her the opportunity to do so also, but she fought on. We opened fire again and slie sank, with all hands—not a man was saved. Capt. Day will not take any of the credit. He says the laurels were earned by the 120 men of his crow and