VALIANT VETERANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1943, Page 5

VALIANT VETERANS

SERVING BRITAIN IN ATLANTIC. TAKING FLEET TENDERS ACROSS FROM AMERICA. f) Six Britons, barred from battlefront service by age or physical disability, have arrived here to ferry Americanbuilt fleet tenders to England, a New York correspondent wrote recently. They and others like them, the group explained in an interview, were helping to keep the Empire’s life line intact by manning small ships in the Atlantic. Heading the group was Admiral the Hon. Sir Herbert Meade-Fetherston-haugh, veteran of Jutland, Heligoland, and Dogger Bank naval engagements in World War I. and now at 68 holding only a lieutenant’s rank in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Among the sailors were Sub-Lieut-enant Conor O’Brien, 63-year-old Irishman who wrote a book about his adventures on a two-year round-the-world 1 trip in a 20-ton boat; Colonel (now Boatswain) H. B. Gunn, 63, who got his first commission in the Roj’al Artillery in the days of Queen Victoria: Lieutenant Samuel B. Evitt, R.N.V.R., 66, a London utility company engineer in pre-war days. The youngster in the group was Sir Richard White, 33, former captain in the yeomanry but invalided out at the beginning of the war because of a stomach ailment. He said he found his mates “very understanding” about his youth. The men in the Ferry Service, the Admiral explained, were giving up their leisure and civilian jobs lio relieve younger men for the fighting service. The Admiral, whose decorations include the Grand Cross, Victoria Order, Commander of the Bath and Distinguished Service Order, said “we all take turns” at peeling potatoes.