THE "AUDACIOUS" MYSTERY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 245, 25 March 1915, Page 7

THE "AUDACIOUS" MYSTERY.

A PROBABLE EXPANATION.

OF THE ADMIRALTY'S SILENCE

Interesting light upon the. many conflicting reports circulated, chiefly from (Jennan and other foreign sources ahi.it tli« disappearance of the. warship Audacious, which the Germans claimed to have sunk in the Irish Sea several weelcs ago, is thrown (says the Star), hy a letter recently received •hy an A.ukhinder from a friend in England, an employee in one of the shipbuilding yards on the Clytk'. It tfill he remembered that the Audacious was reported to have mysteriously and suddenly disappeared, and Hie story was circulated that she had been sunk hy a mine or a torpedo off the north-west coast of Ireland. An air of mystery surrounded the whole affair, and a great deal of comment was aroused in the Press all over the woild, chiefly in America, some papers so far as to elaborate upon the report hy publishing half-page photographs of tiie sinking of the battleship. The matter appeared all the more strange on account of the refusal of the British Admiralty to give any information or particulars on the subject. The writer of the letter states th«.t the warship concerned was built in the yards in which he is employed, and only a few days prior to the report of Iwr loss, set sail on her trial trip before being handed over to the AdmiraViy. She returned some time later, and \va.i docked while repairs were made to her hull. The ship had apparently been ; damaged in action. j Possibly the fact that the vessel had not been taken over by the Admiralty from the contractors accounts for the mysterious silence of the British naval authorities in the matter.