Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 April 1948, Page 4

Oddments

A. reader took the Sydney Sun to task for suggesting that of the 112 people rescued by surf life-savers at the week-end, perhaps 30 would have been drowned. . “Statisticians should take this into consideration —if there were no lifesavers on the beaches people would not be mugs enough to go out and get drowned. Take Narrabeen I3each —three miles long. In between the life-saving clubs people surf all the time and never get drowned, while the clubs are fishing them out like drowned rats most of the time. Whenever I go to isolated beaches/ 1 see that people don’t get into trouble because there are no life-savers there. I’ve been living here (Narrabeen) 25 years—and I don’t know anybody who’s been drowned at the unguarded places.” « « $ $ *

Commodore H. F. Way, master of th'e Andes, considers himself one of the luckiestimen afloat. He commanded seven of his company’s ships during the last war, either trooping, carrying evacuees, or normal passengers and cargo. His guns were never fired in anger, his ships were not harassed by U-boat or dive-bomber, and although he steamed to every part of the world, his voyages were without dramatic incident.

He and many of his officers, however, believe that they took part in one of the great actions of the war, the Battle of the River Plate. It is still a secret, but Commodore Way knows by the manoeuvres he was forced to execute that the ship he then commanded was used as a decoy for the Graf Spee. —The Seeker