COMMANDER OF PHILOMEL

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27401, 14 July 1954, Page 14

COMMANDER OF PHILOMEL

FIRST APPOINTMENT OF NEW ZEALANDER For the first time since the foundation of the Royal New Zealand Navy, a New Zealander has been appointed naval officer in charge at Auckland, and commanding officer of H.M.N.Z.S. Philomel. He is Captain T. D. Herrick, D.S.C. and bar, E.N., who will succeed Captain M. L. Hardie, D.S.C., R.N., in November. Captain Herrick entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth at the age of 13. He served on the New Zealand station for a time, and during the Second World War commanded the destroyer Hotspur. He is the second son of Mr and MrsE. J. Herrick, of Lindisfarne, Hastings. Three of his four brothers were killed in the Second World War. One brother, Commander L. E. Herrick, D.S.C., R.N., was appointed in 1951 commander of the Relentless, a new type of anti-submarine frigate. He was at one time the only New Zealander in command of a submarine, the Tigris. Captain Herrick’s wife is also a New Zealander. They have three children. Three New Zealand Executive Branch captains had been considered “in line” for the appointment. They were Captain L. P. Bourke, D.S.C. and bar, now attending a course at the Imperial Defence College in Britain; Captain P. Phipps, D.S.C., serving in the Operations Division of the Admiralty; and Captain G. R. Davis-Goff, D.S.C. and bar, head of the New Zealand Joint Services’ Liaison Staff in Melbourne and R.N.Z.N. liaison officer in Australia.