WAR MEMORIES

Evening Star, Issue 21285, 14 December 1932, Page 1

WAR MEMORIES

VARIED EXPERIENCES OF CAPTAIN MAXWELL THE FIRST DECOY SHIP The many and varied experiences Captain D’Arcy Maxwell, now revisiting Wellington after a thirty years’ absence, would fill a book (says the * Dominion ’). Captain Maxwell commenced life as an apprentice in the New Zealand Shipping Company in the days of sail, transferring to steam, rose to be chief officer, and October, 1902, resigned to join the Navy as a naval reserve officer, serving on • six different ships until 1906, under, amongst others, the late Admiral Warrender and Admiral Sturdee, of Falkland -.lslands fame. In addition, he had the_ privilege of being an officer on a cruiser in attendance on the Royal yacht when the late King Edward VII. visited_Kiel in 1904, on which occasion Captain Maxwell was personally presented to exKaiser Wilhelm. WHEN WAR UPSET THE WORLD. At the end of his term in the Navy, Captain Maxwell was fortunate enough to be appointed superintendent of the London South Western Railway Company’s fleet of twenty-two steamers, trading to various French ports and the Channel Islands out of Southampton. He held that position until war broke out in August, 1914, when several of the vessels were commandeered for the transport of troops to France. As an assistant transport officer at Southampton, Captain Maxwell witnessed the very flower of the British Army leave England for France in those fateful months between August and November, 1914, the great majority of whom never returned. A DECOY WHICH FAILED. In October, 1914, a German submarine sunk by gunfire in the Channel two of the first British mercantile vessels destroyed in that way,” said Captain Maxwell. “ The Admiralty was 'so incensed at this horrible act that the Commander-iu-Chief at Portsmouth (Admiral Sir Hedworth Meux, formerly Sir Hedworth Lambton, of South Africa fame) was instructed to take action. He promptly commandeered one of our steamers, which I handed over to him at Portsmouth. She was at once fitted out as a decoy ship. She was given two twelve-pounder guns, mounted on either side of the fore deck, cased in to represent , deck cargo, and was manned with a naval lieutenant and ten naval'ratings in addition to a mercantile crew. By this time 1 was so worked up over this German outrage that I volunteered to command the vessel, it.+l'my offer wan promptly accepted. \iy ! Admiral Mehx. Everything was carefully and secretly rehearsed. As soon as the submarine hailed us the mercantile crew was to submit and take to the boats, exactly the formula adopted by the later mystery ships. The vessel was named the H.M.S. Victoria,. and we went into the Channel with a roving commission to hunt for the German U-boat and destroy her. Unfortunately the weather proved so bad from November to January that we never sighted the submarine, and, fed up with the weather, I think the Germans,must have returned to their home port. . . “ After two months’ service we were ordered into port by the Commahder-in-Chief, and were paid off, much to everyone’s disappointment.' This was a considerable time before the decoy or mystery ships were adopted as a regular part of the war game in the North Sea and the Atlantic.” INLAND WATER TRANSPORT. Captain Maxwell then joined up with the Inland Water Transports which was concerned in taking advantage of the inland waterways of France and Belgium for Army purposes, and found himself fn khaki as a captain of the Royal Engineers. He was appointed to the War Office, with the ra'nk of a staff officer. After seeing service in France he was next transferred to the East, the Inland Water Transport haying taken oyer the whole of the river transport on the Tigris and Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, from the Royal India Marine. Captain Maxwell • became liaison officer between India and Mesopotamia, stationed at Army headquarters ot Simla. It was his duty at this juncture in the war to commandeer all kinds of craft for transportation purposes in Mesopotamia, and to do so he ranged from Bagdad to Mandalay, securing hundreds .of craft, many of which liever reached the 1 scene of action. ' INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL MAUDE. In December,. 1916, Captain Maxwell, representing the river craft transportation with the president of the Railway Board, went to Mesopotamia for inspectorial work, and to consult, with the Comfnauder-in-Ghief, the late General Maude, who was then making preparaitons to'take Bagdad, then held by the Turks. At that time Captain Maxwell had attained the rank of lieutenantcolonel, which rank he was allowed to retain by permission of the War Office, for services rendered during the war, when he was demobilised. On Boxing' Day, 1916, Captain Maxwell was commanded to present himself to General Maude, and found him in a small dug-out in the sand far out in the desert beyond a place called Arab Village, where the British line was being held. . ' “ I was given the privilege of half an hour’s private interview with the General,” said Captain Maxwell, “ and found him ta be a most charming and courteous English gentleman. In his dug-out there was only a table, with a map outspread on it, and a camp stool. He instructed me in detail as to his plan of campaign and how the result, almost entirely depended on transport. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that the plan was carried out, and in March, 1917, Bagdad was captured. It is to be regretted that not long afterward' General Maude died. It was believed that ho was poisoned, but that was never quite cleared up.” AT ALEXANDRIA. After the Armistice in 1918, Captain Maxwell removed out East doing clearing up work, and demobilised in September, 1919, but later was ordered back to Mesopotamia to sell up the craft and stores. He then bad a spell

of leave. 1 In 1921 Captain. Maxwell was appointed Marine Superintendent to tho Khedival Steamship Company, trading out of Alexandria to the ports of the Mediterranean, To do_ that job efficiently he had to make himself acquainted with Arabic in order to deal with the men of the sea, and as business _ required a knowledge of commercial French he became proficient in that regard. These qualifications stood him in good stead when in 1929 he retired and commenced business in Alexandria as a marine expert in cases, heard by the Tribunal Boards of Alexandria and Cairo, where, as often happened, a case might concern persons of half a dozen nationalities.. His reports were invariably accepted without question, and his experience of Egyptian courts was that the word of an Englishman came first.