A CAPTAIN'S HONOR

Evening Star, Issue 18145, 8 December 1922, Page 3

A CAPTAIN'S HONOR

SLUR OX FIXE RECORD, LOSS OK THE EGYPT, Was Captain Andrew Collyer responsible for the loss of Jife ■when the P. and 0. liner Egypt plunged to her doom, with eighty-seven souls, after having been rammed in a. dense fog off Ushant on May 20? The verdict of the Board of Trade Coairt of Inquiry, which virtually ended the career of Captain Collyer, an unblemished' record of thirty-nine years’ ecrvico, _ including participation in the South African War and the Great War, has been challenged! by the three great mercantile marine organisations. Since the disaster Captain Collyer has been living at his home in Woking, Surrey. He is a well-built man, in the fifties, clean-shaven, and grey-haired, with the keen eyes of a seaman. Quiet and retiring, Captain Collyer is facing the disaster w£irh has overtaken him with dignified courage and fortitude. “If what I did was wrong,” lie said, during the course of a conversation in his pleasant garden, “ then in future masters will carry- on with the boats under such circumstances and leave undone the things which it seemed right to me to do, and which I did-—that is, investigate the extent of the damage, chart the position of the ship, and send out 5.0.8. messages. “ Before I landed, more dead than alive, on tiio deck of the Seine, I had received several severe blown from floating wreckage, which laid mo up for three weeks. During that time I was not allowed to see any correspondence. “But when I got at the 200 odd letter? that awaited me, I had. the satisfaction of learning that what I had done met with the approval of_ those whose opinion 1 value most—the opinion of my peers, of men who have spent their lives at sea., who know what anxieties a master has in times of danger and disaster —the only men whom 1 regard as competent to pass judgment upon me.” Just how unanimous is the opinion of the Merchant Service —and of the Navy, loo—may be gathered from those letters. There were letters • from America, from Australia, from New Zealand, from India, and from every part of the United Kingdom. There were letters, too, from old passengers and from passengers of the illfated Egypt. There were letters from commodores, from captains, from officers, from pilots—who are master manners—and from old shipmates. They lay heaped on a. little table on the lawn: ; they were scattered! on the grass; they filled the lap of Mrs Collyer, who, throughout Ires' husband’s ordeal, has been his bright and constant star. Through its secretary, the Imperial Merchant Service Guild has written to Captain Collyer a.s followe - “The committee of the guild has under consideration tire judgment of the court so far as you are concerned in the loss of yonr ship. a.s. Egypt. In the first place I am desired by the committee to express to you their sincere sympathy with you in the decision of the court'whereby you have had your certificate taken from you alter such a long and unblemished record. I am requested to inquire of you as to whether the guild! has your permission to take any steps .which may be decided upon in tie matter of endeavoring to get the decision of the court rescinded: and your certificate returned.” The Merchant Marine Service Association, in supporting the other organisations, wrote as follows: —

“Wo are very reluctant to allow this judgment to stand, not only on your behalf, but in the interests of the profession. The suspension of your certificate, not for lack of seamanship, but for nob haying controlled a panic, raises a novel point, and the punishment of a shipmaster by a court of inquiry under these circumstances is without precedent. “Wo suggest for your approval that this association and the Imperial Merchant Service Guild invite the Board of Trade to sympathetically review the decision ot the court, at the game time laying before them the points which, in our judgment, justify an appeal for consideration. The third of tho great mercantile organisations —the Association of Coastwise Masters, Mates, and Engineers—has _ already prepared a memorial to the Prime Minister, protesting vigorously against the finding of the court. , These letters, but a_few of many, indicate the feeling prevailing amqjjg men of the mercantile marine ihe verdict passed on Captain Collyer, That the matter will be left where it is, in, the face of a united protest from the three most powerful and influential mercantile organisations, may well bedoubled, “ Bad, enough to lose a ship,” said Captain Collyer. “But to lose ones certificate, to be branded with that stigma after thirty-nine years without an accident, that is something a landsman can have no conception of. His ‘ticket’ is all a sailonnan has: and when that is gone, gone also are life and honor. “The verdict sweeps away at one stroke lie work of a lifetime.” But the last word has yet to be said, soya a London paper.