THE CUMBERLAND'S CAPTURES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1339, 22 December 1914, Page 4

THE CUMBERLAND'S CAPTURES.

Recent files from England contain glowing appreciation of the exploits, early in October, of Captain Cyril Fuller and H.M.S. Cumberland. These names deserve to be more familiar in British ears than those of Commandant Carl von Mueller and the Emden. The Cumberland is a training-ship for naval cadets, manned by the boys from Dartmouth Naval College. What she did was to round up and capture, near the Cameroons, West Africa, nine German merchant ships, belonging to the Woermann fleet. The great capture was briefly noted in cable news at the time. The nine captured vessels aggregate 31,000 tons. They constituted one-fourth of the whole Woermann fleet, which was the chiet German shipping venture on the West African coast. Its capital was and its fleet contained 39 vessels of a total of 112,616 tons. Those ships that were captured by Captain Fuller are worth .£300,000 without their cargoes. He stated iu hi;; report to the Admiralty that he had the nine vessels “in good order, most ot them containing general outward and homeward cargoes, and considerable quantities of coal.’' Mr Archibald Hurd points out in the London Daily Telegraph that in this one coup Captain Fuller did more for Britain than Von Mueller did for Germany. He did not sink the captured ships, but added them to the wealth and strength of the British mercantile marine. Hero-worshippers who have been repeating the name of Mueller may vary it by remembering the more homelike name Fuller, now that they know more details of what Fuller did. He is a smart navy captain, who has often distinguished himself in manoeuvres.