GRAND FLEET SECRET

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2969, 5 January 1917, Page 5

GRAND FLEET SECRET

.WHAT DID THE ABDIEL DO? Jin Mr. Rudyard Kipling's fifst .article on tie destroyers at Jutland, one paragraph, by reason of its mysterious illusion, caused much, observation (says [he ."Express"). It read: — • "It looks, then, as if, when wo lost (sight of the enemy in the smoke sorcan and the darkness, he had broken for home astern our main fleet. And whether that was a sound manoeuvre or otherwise,, he and the still flows of the North Sea alone can tell." Admiral Jellicoo concluded his dispatch of the .first day of the battle— •which in effect was the end of the description of the fighting—wiiiii this 'brief paragraph, "Abdiel, ably commanded by Commander Berwick Carter, carried out her duties with the success which has always characterised her work," . ' A naval correspondent who submitted to the Press censor a narrative on incidents in the fleet, in referring to rths fate of : the Germans at Jutland, recently had a paragraph released as follows: "The Germans had enough of it by the timo the Abdiel finished her Job." Mr. Kipling's suggestion of the probability that the Germans may not lave chosen the wisest retreat, ■ the (magnificent, if brief, commendation of the Abdiel by Sir John Jellicoe, and ftho referenco by the naval correspondent to the Abdiel's part in the great fight all point to fiotnc secret looked deep in the Grand Fleet. - . In'all the criticisms of the naval tattle, all the narratives of the night of wonderful deeds, no mention was ever made of the Abdiel; the tribute by. the Commander-in-Chief was so brief it passed generally unobserved. The (Abdiel is unfamiliar to the public, she 5s not known in'.all . corners, of the Empire like the Iron Duke, the Lion, and the Tiger, or the Princess Royal and Queen Elizabeth, but I have met men who were aboard her on the memorable night, and (writes a naval correspondent) when the day comes to tell the full story of" Jutland", Ah'dipl will Bfcand out in emblazoned letters on the records of the Navy. , What is the story?