CAMERA MEN AT NAVAL SURRENDER

Evening Star, Issue 16993, 15 March 1919, Page 11

CAMERA MEN AT NAVAL SURRENDER

INTERESTING IMPRESSIONS. The following account of the meeting between tho German fleet and a British destroyer early on Thursday morning, was supplied to a London ' Times's' correspondent by a Press photographer: "It was my good fortune to be in the first British warship to come up with the Germans. With colleagues of the camera I went out to sea in tho small hours of Thursday morning in H.M.'S. Seymour, one of the trimmest and fastest of the British destroyers. Somewhere out of sight behind us we know there were other fast torpedo craft, and behind them aguin the light cruiser Cardiff, whose duty it was to lead the German fleet into the custody of the Grand fleet. It was, as nearly as I can. tell, at 20 minutes to 8, or, as the Navy would say, at 07.40, that we first sighted the Germans. Dawn was just breaking, and away on our port bow we saw a patch slightly darker than the still dark sky. At great speed we dashed straight for the centre of the patoh, and presently it resolved itself into the dim forms of the German battle-crui6ers steaming slowly in line ahead. We kept on our course, came abreast of the Seydlitss, tore past her, and proceeded down the lino until the massed destroyer flotillas came into view. Still at high speed, we swung behind them, as a sheep dog might round up a flock to be penned. Soon we were back at the head of the German fleet. We had completely encircled it, travelling at anything up to 36 knots an hour. By this time the light was becoming suitable tor photography, and we got to work. For mqxe than an hour we dashed hither and thither, our stem shearing through the water and throwing up preat waves which swept constantly over our bows. We were close enough to the Soydlitz and others of the ships for the German seamen to see what tsw were doing. They wore evidently rimmi by the sight of the kinematograph men turning the handle, and some of them laughingly mimicked the motion. It they felt the utter humiliation of their plight they did not show it. Nor did tho men dn our ship give any sign of gloating.'