NOBLE TRIBUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 160, 9 July 1935, Page 5

NOBLE TRIBUTE.

ADMIRAL BYRD.

HEROISM OF OATES RECALLED

«A GALLANT GENTLEMAN."

The night before the Rangitiki was due to dock at Panama with Admiral R. E. Byrd among the passengers a concert was held in the main lounge as a compliment to the intrepid American explorer. There was a distinguished company, and speeches eulogising the feats of the gallant admiral were made. Among those who addressed the company was General Sir Alexander Godley, G.C.8., K.C.M.G., whose career as a soldier has made his name known throughout the British Empire. Also present at the function was Mr. Marsden Caughey, who recently returned to Auckland, and he was so impressed by General Godley's remarks that he asked him for a copy of the speech. This was the tribute of a gallant Briton to a great American: — "In the Cavalry Club in London there hangs a picture by a well-known artist. Among all the pictures of great cavalry leaders, horses, and horsemen which adorn the walls, this picture is the most prized. It depicts a man in_ the kit of an Arctic explorer, groping his way into a blinding snowstorm.- That man was Captain Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons, a member of one of Captain Scott's Antarctic expeditions. • "At a critical period of the expedition he fell sick, and sooner than become a hindrance and embarrassment to his comrades, and imperil their success, he decided to walk out into oblivion. The picture bears a simple inscription, 'a very gallant gentleman,', and when we hear of how Admiral Byrd, alone, in grave peril, and with slender hope of survival, decided not to wireless for aid to his comrades because he thought that if they tried to succour him their own lives would be endangered, I think, and I am sure you will agree, that these words can be very fittingly applied to him."