DESTROYER OF EMDEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 February 1935, Page 12

DESTROYER OF EMDEN

VICE-ADMIRAL’S DEATH. Memories of the dramatic destruction at sea of the German raider Emden during the war were recalled by the death in a nursing home at Weymouth, England, recently, of ViceAdmiral John Collings Taswell Glossop. C.B.

Admiral Glossop, who retired in 1921 and lived at Bridport. Dorset, was in command of the Australian cruiser Sydney when she destroyed the Emden, which had torpedoed thousands of tons of British shipping in the Pacific. The* raider was one of Admiral von Spee.'s notorious squadron. Rigging up a false funnel and dis-' playing the British flag. the Emden put into the Bay of Bengal early in September, 1914. Within a week she had cut off all sea communication between India and Burma. . Before being caught by the Sydney at the Cocos Islands on November 9, 1914, the Emden entered the harbour of Penang and sank a Rusisan cruiser and a French destroyer. No fewer than 129 of the Emden’s crew were killed in the battle with the Sydney, and Captain von Muller and the survivors taken prisoners. Captain von Muller and his officers were noted for the humanity and courtesy which they had always shown to their war victims, and tho British Admiralty ordered that, with the other survivors, they were to be accorded all honours of war. Captain von Muller and his officers were not deprived of their aw ords.

Vice-Admiral Glossop leaves a widow, a son and daughter. He himself was a son of the Rev. G. G. P. Glossop, vicar of Twickenham, and was married in 1918 to the daughter of Mr. John McPhillamy, of Bathurst. New South Wales. Among his other honours he wore the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun and the Legion of Hon-| our. Adventure befell him early ini life, for he was serving as midshipman i in 11.M.5. Calliope when that ship escaped from the disastrous hurricane at Apia, Samoa, in 1889.