NEW COMMODORE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 21

NEW COMMODORE

P. AND 0. FLEET

Captain R. Harrison, D.5.0., R.D., R.N.R., commanding the Strathmore, has succeeded Captain J. B. Browning, R.D., R.N.R., as commodore of the P. and O. fleet.

Captain Harrison began his sea life in the Worcester training ship and served his time in Devitt and Moore's training ship Hesperus, which was well known for many years in Australian ports. He joined the P. and O. Company as fifth officer in the s.s. Valetta in 1899, and has continued in the company since.

At the outbreak of the war he was appointed to the old cruiser Sutlej and from her he went to the .Conquest in the Harwick Force. He was awarded the R.D; in 1916 and promoted to lieu-tenant-commander in the following year. He was then appointed to the Indian Marine trooper Dalhousie, from which he took command of the gunboat Cranefly on the Tigris, following the bigger Mantis. He was in charge of the naval guns from the Tieris gunboats, which he took across Persia to the Caspian, a magnificent service which earned him'the D.S.O.

Returning to the P. and O. Company, he was promoted to the command of the Kidderpore in 1925. and has commanded since then the Sicilia, Alipore. Berrima, Macedonia, Razmak, Naldera. Mooltan, and Strathnaver.

In 1932-35 he was Royal Naval Reserve A.D.C. to the King, and' had the great distinction of being selected as one of the four officers chosen to represent the merchant navy in the march through London on the occasion of his Majesty's funeral.

With such lone service on the Eastern and Australian routes, Captain Harrison is known to many thousands of passengers who have been travelline to and fro in the last score of years. •