Suspended Admiral

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 307, 19 March 1928, Page 1

Suspended Admiral

OFFICERS RESENT HARSH TREATMENT

Overstepped Bounds of Naval Etiquette

FROM the first day Rear-Admiral Collat’d stepped aboard the Royffl Oak last year to take command of the First Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet, his subordinates had cause for complaint regarding his treatment of them, according to information which has come to light in London.

By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright.

Reed 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Sat. INFORMATION from a quarter which must be respected throws some interesting sidelights upon incidents of social and naval life of the Mediterranean Station, which has gone further than club room gossip. The suspension of the three officers is not a storm in a teacup, but the culmination of his subordinates’ longgrowing resentment against the language Rear-Admiral B. St. G. Collard uses. They have also resented on several occasions the time and place and public nature of his oil what he considered the failings of those about him. They maintain that he has outstripped the bounds in which they arc forced by their junior rank to bend a silent and respectful ear. Consequently they, decided to take advantage of the article in the King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, which entitles subordinates to make a complaint after showing the complaint to the man they accused. The trouble between Captain K. G. B. Dewar, flag-captain of the battleship Royal Oak, and Commander H. M. Daniel, on the one side, and RearAdmiral B. St. G. Collard on the other, started the day the admiral boarded the Royal Oak. The discipline under which all officers of the British Navy serve is strict, but there are certain polite conventions which help to make it endurable. Primarily captains of ships are not usually reprimanded before their men. It has been known in London for some time that Admiral Collard’s comments on what he considered the con-

dition of his new flagship, delivered as he made his first rounds of inspection of the Royal Oak, rocked the ship from stem to stern. Admiral Collard has left Malta foiLondon under instructions from the Admiralty. A second communique issued by the Admiralty says the report of the Malta Court of Inquiry which investigated the affair has been received, and the Admiralty is considering it. It is definitely stated that there was no mutiny or refusal to sail under Admiral Collad, and there has been no court-mar-tial.—A. and N.Z.-Sun.