OFFICER PUNISHED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 425, 6 August 1928, Page 9

OFFICER PUNISHED

STRANDING OF CRUISER (United P.A. — l!y Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and A 7.Z. Press Association > (United. Service) LONDON, Saturday. A court-martial has found Lieuten-ant-Commander Thomas Ramsay Beatty guilty of negligently suffering the cruiser Dauntless to be stranded near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on July 2. He has been dismissed from his ship and seevrely reprimanded. The British light cruiser Dauntless rail ashore at the entrance to Halifax harbour on July 2. She was attaining slowly into the harbour in a dens** fog when she crashed on the Tribun** Lodge shoal, which is well inside the harbour entrance. The commander mistook the Trum Cap buoy for one marking the fairway. There was no loss of life. T7ecrew were placed, with their effects, on the Canadian light cruisers Festubert and Ypres. The stranded vessel presented a pathetic spectacle. A 36-foot hole on her port side just under tbe forward funn«l. was the principal damage. The masts were tottering and threatening to fall, and the wireless was tangled. Following the naval • usti tbe Hot wan a*.; taken on when be spok*- the cruiser. By a strange coincidence, the Dauntless was carrying a tombstone, which was intended for erection near the Straits of Belle Isle in memory of the ill-fated steamer Raleigh and her crew, who were lost there years ago. Tribune Ledge derived its name from the naval transport Tribune, which was wrecked there. with the loss of 80 lives. It was feared the Dauntless would break up and all ’u.*r stores, guns, torpedoes and movable fittings were removed. However. the United States Government, at the request of the British Government, sent pontoons to Halifax to raise her. Air was forced into the flooded compartments, and eventually, on July 12. she was refloated. It was estimated that repairs would take three months to effect.