SHIPS THAT PASS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1937, Page 6

SHIPS THAT PASS

FAMOUS DESTROYER BROKE

LONDON, August 8.

The meagre announcement in the press that “the Chilean Navy has scrapped the destroyer Almirante Uribe” is not, 091 the face of it, calculated to stir any great feeling in British breasts—unless one is familiar with the, following story:— .

One night in J 917 a patrol of British destroyers off Dover found a num- . her of grey shapes steaming swiftly out of the blackness toward them, soon to , bo discerned as a-force of raiding German destroyers. .Although badly outnumbered —the proportion was soniei thing more than* three to one—the British ships gave battle, and before .the engagement finished the destroyer Broke had written her name in the , annals of British naval history. The Broke, captained by the present Admiral, Sir E. R. G. R. Evans, engaged one enemy ship and sank her with gunfire and torpedoes. Turning her attention elsewjier.e she. sent anotlrer ship to the boftorn by ramming. Finally the marautters were routed, and' the Broke, although badly damaged and with heavy casualties, managed to return to port. At the end of the-war the Chilean Government claimed jthe Broke, which was being-dmilt for Cliiile on the south coast when the war broke out. And so, in 1920, she hauled down her colours for the last time .and sailed away to join another famous ship, the River Clyde, under a foreign flag.