HAMPSHIRE DISASTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 25, 29 December 1925, Page 7

HAMPSHIRE DISASTER.

LORD KITCHENER’S DEATH

CHARGES AGAINST ADMIRALTY,

LONDON, Dec. 27. Mr Frank Power, writing in tho Referee, asserts that Mr W. C. Bridgeman (First Lord of tho Admiralty) made a futile effort to evade charges that—(l) More than twelve survived from the disaster to the armoured cruiser Hampshire (in which Lord Kitchener and his staff were travelling to Russia, and which was lost off tho Orkneys in June 5, 1916) ; (2) Lord Kitchener escaped in a small boat and survived two nights and a day in an inaccessible part of the Orkney coast; (3) Lord Kitchener’s body - was found elsewhere; (4) an infernal machine exploded aboard the Hampshire, and (5) the Navy was guilty of slackness in sending rescue parties. Mr Power declares that the Germans were aware of Lord Kitchener’s mission sufficiently in advance of liis departure to lay thirty-four mines in the vicinity of the Orkneys inscribed “Gott strafe Kitchener,” and that Mr Bridgeman has failed to disclose that a trawler was mined and sunk >n the Harnbshire’s path three days prior to tho disaster to the cruiser.—Sydney Sun cable.

Mr Bridgeman, replying in the House of Commons to recent statements, said that it was untrue that the sailing of tho Hampshire with Lord Kitchener for Russia was an open secret. Tho ship was not selected till ten days before she sailed, and her course was not fixed until the last moment. No mines had previously been reported to have been laid near tho Orkneys, but the Admiralty had no doubt that the Hampshire founded as a result of striking a moored mine laid by U 75 in preparation for the Jutland battle. Furthermore, Admiral von Sclieer’s report of tho battle showed that U 75 had been in that area. The statement that spies had previously been shot aboard tho Hampshire was a wicked fabrication.