TWO BELLS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 26

TWO BELLS

CONNECTION WITH GERMANS

H.M.S. BROKE'S ENCOUNTER

Two interesting letters came to hand this week on ships' bells. One concerned tho Tasmania, a Well-known vessel belonging'to the New Zealand Shipping Company, and the other H.M.S. Broke. A correspondent, late of H.M.S. Broke, states that in. April, 1917, H.M.S. Broke, under command of (now) RearAdmiral E. R. G. R. Evans, in company with H.M.S. Swift, attacked iivc fast German destroyers in mid-Cliauiiel at midnight.- After a severe encounter, the Broke rammed one of the German boats, after having sunk two by torpedoes. In ramming the enemy ship | at 28 knots the impact was so great that the destroyer was cut in two and almost folded around the Broke's bows. One of the torpedo tubes of the. German ship pierced clean through the forecastle mess deck' before breaking off. This relic of tho fray was cast into a beautiful bell of mellow tone, and suitably inscribed, afterwards hung on the quarterdeck of the Broke. A BELL STOLEN. After the war the Tasmania was one of many handed over by the' Germans. During the Tasmania's stay at* Antwerp, in September, 1922, the bell hanging in the crpwsncst on the foremast, and weighing' more than a hundredweight, disappeared one day without being noticed, and may easily have disappeared like the bell of the Eindeu,! if an enterprising policeman had not asked tho custodian with'the load a few questions. Even, so; the culprit might have succeeded in getting away with the bell, had he not been foolish enough to tell the policeman that ho was taking it back to' Germany. The bell was eventually returned to the ship none the worse for its trip ashore. "What happened to tho man who.removed it from tho crow, nest is, of course, another story," states the correspondent, who was bosun at the time.