TRIBUTE PAID

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 272, 18 December 1939, Page 4

TRIBUTE PAID

GALLANTRY —f SKILL --Jf. : BRITONS AT SEA FIGHT AGAINST ODDS RUGBY, Dec. 15. The trib.iite, paid by the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, to Luo very gallant actioli fought by the three comparatively small British ships against the much . more heavily armed Nazi adversary offjtho..coast of South America, is warmly endorsed in tho press. “The running fight in which, outnimourej and' out-gunned, the cruisers compelled the battleship to take punishment and chased her, damaged ami ineffectual, to an 'inglorious refuge in a neutral port, will,” says the Daily Telegraph, “rank »yliih the most Splendid exploits of frigates against three-deckers in thefrfJive days of old.” Half as great again The Times, recalling that the broadside of the Graf von Spec is in weight of metal half again as that of her three assailants put together, says : “So powerful aj ship was bound toi do damage, and! the Exeter was forced to drop out of the swiftlymoving light, but not before her guns, the heaviest in the British spuadron * had done seven; execution. Indeed, by the time tlfo Exeter was crippled the German ship's retreat had already become something like flight and sho was forcodi to take refuge, with her side broached, her bridge blown away and several gums out of action, in the territorial waters of Uruguay. .So notable a discomfiture of a greater by

a lesser armament can only he explained']')! one way'—-by out.standing superiority in seamanship and gunnery on hoard the- ships possessing the lighter guns. ’ V. ,