MERCHANT SEAMEN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1828, 18 May 1918, Page 4

MERCHANT SEAMEN.

TRIBUTE TO THEIR COURAGE. FROM ADMIRALS JELLICOE AND WEMYSS. Admiral Lord Jellicoe, in a speech at Liverpool in March, paid a high tribute to the merchant service for what its members had accomplished during the war. His earliest experience of this was, he said, in October, 1914, when Commodore Haddock, of the Olympic, almost succeeded in saving a line ship off the north coast of Ireland. Three V.C.’s had been awarded to members of the mercantile marine, and one of the .recipients, thff late Lieutenant-Command-er Sanders, was one of the heroes of the war. The story of his deed was yet to be written, but his opponent —a German —knew what that deed was.. Lord Jellicoe said he had had incidents of the exploit painted, and the painting would be sent to New Zealand, where the gallant officer belonged, as a tribute to a very gallant officer.

Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, the present First Sea. Lord, presiding at the annual meeting of the Beamon’s Hospital Society, in March, said: “The enemy, ((nick to perceive any chink in our armour, has thought lit to attack us in what he believed would be our weak spot, and has attacked us in such a manner as no civilised, being would have thought probable. But he has found that the weakness in our armour is less weak than he expected. He concluded that the very menace of his ruthlessness and murderous submarine warfare would prevent our merchant ships from putting to sea, but it seems that he has not read —or at any rate has not studied —history, and that, much as he does know, he does not know the dogged perseverance in the paths of duty and that persistency of effort for which our race has been so conspicuous throughout the pages of European history. Perhaps he surmised we were effete, and that our eff'eteness would be visible in oyr merchant navy, but he has made a mistake. Our merchant nayy has proved itself to be —as it always was —manned by men who know not fear, and who, realising their duties, have borne a share of this war in a manner which, in spite of the unexpectedness of the enemy’s methods, is beyond all praise, and which worthily upholds the best traditions of the sea. Surely then it’behoves all of us who arc directly interested in the outcome of their efforts to see that these men are properly lo v oked after. It has required the action of the enemy to teach us how interwoven are the Navy and the merchant service, and how dependant they are upon each other. No longer can it be said that the merchant seaman can follow his trade in comparative safety when the seas have been swept of the enemy’s cruisers. He has now to combat a menace more threatening, more ruthless, and more barbarous than any of the piracies of the Middle Ages.”