THE NAVAL ADVISER.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14975, 23 May 1914, Page 14

THE NAVAL ADVISER.

CAPTAIN P. H. HALE THOMPSON. (rilOtf OCR OWN COBKESrONDEXT.) LONDON, April 17. From the training point of view, Now Zealand could probably not have t got a more experienced navVl adviser than Captain P. H. Hall Thompson. ! In tho Navy List lie appears as captain ! of No. 385, watch is H.M.S. President, and in tho fleah lies in tho Thames within a couple of hundred yards of this office. The President was formerly the steam eloop Buzzard, under which name ehe is easily recognised as a sister of what was once the Sparrow, and is now the New Zealand training ship Aniokura. But "to be captain of tho President means more than appears on tbo face of it. Tho President is the headquarters and training' ship of the London Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and Captain Thompson is a naval member of the Admiralty Volunteer Committee. Though so small a vessel, tho President takes up three pages of the Navy List,, whereas the average first-class battleship only takes hal,f a page. This is beoauso ehe is the: nominal headquarters of all_ sorts of services. She bears as additional for various sen-ices Jiydrofrrapbic, ordnance, patrols, R.N. College, coastguards, engineer, overseers, and numbers more. This does not mean that all these officers are quartered on board. It is just the same as at Portsmouth, where H.M.S. Victory lies empty in the stream, but 40(J0 men with H.M.S. Victory on their hate axe housed a shore in the nayal barracks.