A GALLANT FIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2007, 26 July 1919, Page 3

A GALLANT FIGHT.

VICTORIA CROSS FOR CAPTAIN A. B. SMITH. AWARDS FOR HEROIC SEAFARERS. The New Zealand Shipping Company have received advice that a posthumous award of the Victoria Cross has been made to Captain Archibald B, Smith for most capspieuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in command of the s.s. Otaki, on March 10th, 1917. ChiefOffieer McNeish has also been awarded the D. 5.0., and the two gunners, Worth and Jackson, the D.S.M. In this connection the directors of the New Zealand Shipping Company have been very much impressed by the reports of the gunner, Leading-Seaman Worth, and they have made him a presentation of a tankard, on which appears the following inscription: “Presented by the New Zealand Shipping Company to Leading-Seaman Worth, with a cheque for one hundred'guineas, as a mark of appreciation of his gallant light ns gunner of their s.s. Otaki, in her engagement with the German raider AFoowe, in the North Atlantic, March 10th, 1917.” The following is a comparison of the armament of the two vessels: — S.S. Otaki: Defensive armament, one 4.7 gun; A. E. Worth, loading seaman; E. Jackson, gunner’s male; W. E. Martin, apprentice (killed); B. IT. Kilnor, apprentice (killed). Moewe: Two 7.5 guns, two fiin. guns, six 3in. guns, four torpedo tubes.

The Secretnry of: the Admiralty wrote to the Now Zealand Shipping Company an follows; “The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty consider this a very gallant action, and if the Otakl had had a little more lack she would have sank the raider against overwhelming odds.”