EARL JELLICOE.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19466, 13 November 1928, Page 13

EARL JELLICOE.

FREEMAN OF ABERDEEN. TRIBUTE TO NORTH SEA FISHERMEN. (FBOM OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, September 27. Admiral of the Fleet\ Earl Jellicoe, who is making his first appearance in Scotland as the new president of the British Legion, in succession to the late Earl Haig, received the freedom of Aberdeen on September 26th. He paid a tribute to Aberdeen's splendid war record. The trawler reserve of the R.N.R., he. said, was inaugurated at Aberdeen in 1901, and the first thirty skippers and the first ninety ratings were enrolled at Aberdeen. These men were the nucleus of the great auxiliary Navy of 19X4-18, and performed absolutely invaluable service. During the war the Admiralty took over from Aberdeen 241 steam trawlers and 20 steam liners and drifters, for patrol and work, and 662 skippers and fully 7000 ratings were enrolled at. Aberdeen. The supply of fish for this country was maintained by 70 Aberdeen vessels. Fishing under '.he protection, of the, Peterhead patrol, the risks run by these gallant fishermen were not too well known. ~ , Lord Jellicoe told how an Aberdeen mine-sweeping trawler, Dorothy Gray, was the first vessel of that class to sink a German submarine, on November 23rd, 1914, near the entrance to Scapa Flow. But for that, said the Admiral, it was more than probable' that more frequent attempts . would have been made by German submarines to enter the base at Scapa Flow, and the results might have been indeed mo3t serious. He also described how the armed Aberdeen trawler, John Gilman,. .flank a German submarine off "Whitby on August 3rd, 1918. When the vessel failed to ram the submarine's - periscope, he said, it dropped three depth charges, and the wreck of the .submarine was afterwards located by divers. ' "There are many classes of men to whom I take off my hat in admiration." said Lord Jellicoe, "but there are few whom I admire more than the fishermen who earn their livelihood in the North Sea. These men are> real sailors in every sense of the word. In the morning Earl and Countess Jellicoe visited the hospitals and war memorial, and in the Hall or Remembrance Earl Jellicoe laid a wreath of poppies on the shrine. At Trinity Cemetery he unveiled a new tombstone erected on a British Legion crave. The British Legion pipers plaved a lament, and the . buglers sounded "Last Post."