HARDY OLD SEA DOG

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1940, Page 5

HARDY OLD SEA DOG

"DOING HIS BIT" AT 85

DEFIANCE OF GERMAN BOMBS

Captain J. M. Caulfield, an 85-year-old retired British naval officer who first visited Sydney in 1881 and "chased the sun" here almost yearly until war broke out, is again in Sydney—this time trying "to do his bit" for the war effort.

Short, stocky, with a tanned complexion, and a jaw like granite, Captain Caulfield brought his lecturing gear and a bundle of text-books with Mm, as well as his special "lecturing map" of the world. Having had his services refused in London, he decided that lie might be able to assist boys wanting' to go to sea by lecturing in Sydney. . ■

"As soon as war broke out I offered my services to the Navy," he said. "Do you believe it, they told me I was too old. Well, I am 85, rising 86. But I thought I could be useful to them as a French interpreter."

He is a hardy old seadog. During the voyage out he paced the decks of the ship while it was pounding in a heavy gale and most of the other passengers were too ill to leave their cabins.

Captain Caulfield went through much of the aerial blitzkrieg in London, and ihas an utter contempt for Nazi bombers. "Yes, I saw most of it," he said. "They dropped a bomb right outside my boarding-house. They missed me. I never went down to the shelters at night If the Germans wanted to get me they could get me in bed. T wasn't going to get out for them!"