A CHIVALROUS FOE

Evening Star, Issue 21193, 29 August 1932, Page 8

A CHIVALROUS FOE

mi SPEE SPARED OUR SAMOAN FORCE TRIBUTE AT VETERANS' REUNION [Pek United Pkess Association.] WELLINGTON, August 28. “ Members of the Samoan Expeditionary Force owe a great debt to a great enemy—Admiral Von Spee,” declared Colonel R. S. M'Quarrie at the Samoan Veterans’ reunion on Saturday evening. <c On one day the fate of the expedition lay in that man’s hands. We came back to New Zealand without a casualty, but the Samoan Force might have met its end._ Who, given the opportunity to inflict enormous losses, would have held his hand? ” Colonel M'Quarrie asked. “It was because Admiral Von Spec was a great admiral and a great gentleman that we escaped. Ho refused to be a wanton killer, but sailed away and left us because he did not see that any. military object could be gained by loosing off at us.” Colonel A. E. Cowles supported this view, mentioning that as time had smoothed over a great many difficulties we could appreciate many. fine points of some of our enemies in the late war, [The particulars of the incident referred to by Colonel M'Quarrie were explained this morning by Mr T. O’Shea, who, as a member of the Wellington Regiment, was a participant in it. “ We were in camp at the racecourse,” said Mr O’Shea, “ when about 5.30 a.m. on September 14, 1914. the scouts, whose duty it was to report any vessels approaching the island, intimated that two strange warships were in sight. At first there was some speculation as to whether they were Japanese or Australian, but they were finally identified as the German Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The troops were ordered to their positions in defence in case a landing was attempted. Half of B Company manned the trenches, and the rest of the troops marched off along the beach. After going through some bush two platoons were ordered, by whom I don’t know, on to the road. The boats wore lying broadside on less than 3,oooyds off, and I could see the rungs of a ladder on one of the funnels. As we marched along the road, in column of route, with only about half a dozen cocoanut palms between us and the beach, we could see the guns trained on us and following us along for half a mile before we turned in behind,- the Catholic Church. It was the most uncomfortable ten minutes I ever experienced,” concluded the narrator.]