GIFT TO NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 December 1940, Page 5

GIFT TO NAVY

FROM THE UNITED STATES. PICTURES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 26. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Alexander, has received from Colonel Frank Knox, United States Secretary of the Navy, two pictures of Abraham Lincoln. One will hang in the ward room of H.M.S. Lincoln, one of the destroyers recently transferred to the Royal Navy from the United States Navy, and the other in the First Lord’s room in the Admiralty. With the pictures the First Lord received the following letter from Colonel Knox: “I learned with great satisfaction that your name one of the former American destroyers, and now part of the British Navy, Lincoln. Surely in a war being fought for the preservation of human liberty no more significantly appropriate name could have been chosen. lam sending you by the hand of the first naval officer who may be assigned to London as an observer two pictures of Lincoln, one of which I hope may be hung on the walls of the wardroom and the other for yourself. With sincere and heartfelt wishes, I am, yours cordially, Frank Knox.” The First Lord in reply wrote: "It gave me great pleasure to receive from the hand of Commander Hitchcock your kind gift of pictures. I shall treasure mine most deeply and I know the officers and men of H.M.S. Lincoln wil give theirs pride of place on the walls of the wardroom. No gift from you could have been more happily chosen, expressing as it does your sympathy in the struggle for the preservation of human liberty, the cause to which Lincoln devoted his life. I hope you will do me the honour of accepting an old and rare coloured naval print which I am forwarding under separate cover by the bearer of this letter. With my best thanks and cordial greetings, yours sincerely,. Alexander.”