N.Z. commander for Prince

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32706, 8 September 1971, Page 2

N.Z. commander for Prince

(N Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON, Sept. 7.

Prince Charles, when he enters Dartmouth Naval College at the beginning of next week as an acting sublieutenant, will come under the command of a New Zealander. The commander of the college is Captain G. Tait, born in Timaru and educated at Umaru Boys* High School. He has been head of the college since September, 1970, after a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. Captain Tait regards his new recruit with an equanimity which befits the Senior Service.

“We’re delighted that. Prince Charles has chosen a career in the Navy,” he said. “He’ll be treated as a normal graduate entrant, and all the normal rules will apply. I don’t anticipate any special problems at aIL”

Prince Charles will spend six weeks at Dartmouth in Devon, and ben nine months aboard the guided missile destroyer Norfolk. At Dartmouth, the Prince will receive pay of £4.40 a day, less £1 for food and lodging. Fellow sub-lieu-tenants will call him “Charles,” while he will address superior officers as “sir.”

Most of the day, Prince Charles will attend lectures but there, will be a certain amount of square-bashing and practical navigational and sailing courses on the River Dart.

Captain Tait has been a Royal Navy man all his life. He applied for entry to Dartmouth while still at Timaru Boys’ High—where his father was rector—and was accepted in 1939. On the trip from New Zealand, he was supposed to travel as a passenger in a freighter but because of desertions, he signed on as a crew member, earning £3 a month for the two-month voyage.

In spite of the outbreak of war, Captain Tait went through a normal officer training course at Dartmouth and then served in various ships engaged in escort duty and submarine work.

. Captain Tait was briefly in New Zealand after the war when he was aide-de-camp to Sir Bernard Freyberg from 1948 to 1950, on secondment from the Navy.

Since then he has commanded various ships, as well as serving with the British High Commission in Ottawa.

Captain Tait is married to the former Miss P. Todd, of Wellington, and they have four children, two girls and two boys.