THE NELSON TOUCH

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3064, 27 April 1917, Page 4

THE NELSON TOUCH

Is there a man in New Zealand to-day who, after reading the glowing account of the exploits of the British destroyers Swift and Broke in their magnificent fight with six German destroyers, can find nothing within him to move him to take off his hat and raise a cheer for tlio Navy? We doubt it. The account we publish to-day of the fight in the Channel is one of the' _ finest things in tho war. There', in the midnight darkness of the Channel, the spirit of Nelson was manifested in the bold and dashing elan that characterised the tactics of the destroyer commanders, ■ Peck, of the Swift, and Evans, of the Broke. Commander Evans was with Scott in the Antarctic. He was in NewZealand. He is well remembered here. Now. he will go down in the annals of the Navy as a worthy descendant of the great sea-fighters of the past. Again, could anything be finer than the heroism of the plucky midshipman Gyles, who held up the German boarders at the point of the revolver, -half-blinded by the blood of his wounds; or than the steadfast courage of Seaman Howies, who, wounded in four places, stuck to his post, and then, when it was all over, reported that he was going off—and fainted away ! That is the British way at sea.. It is the "Nelson touoh," the tradition of the British Navy, that makes possible such dauntless initiative and irresistible daring as inspired Commanders Peck and Evans to fight against odds of three to one| and win;