NEW ADMIRAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 111, 11 April 1936, Page 12

NEW ADMIRAL

FOR AUSTRALIAN SQUADRON. Reais-Admiral R. H. O. Lane-Pool, the new Rear-Admiral commanding H.M. Australian Squadron, left England last month to succeed Rear-Admiral W. T. R. Ford, who has held the post since April, 1934. He was accompanied by Captain A. G. B. Wilson, who will be flag-captain of the Canberra. Promoted to flag rank in May. 1935, this will be Admiral Lane-Pool's first flag appointment, though he flew his broad pennant as a commodore when in command of the South America division of the America and West Indies station in 1931-33 Well known in Australia as tin? commanding officer of the Royal Australian Naval College, at Jervis Bay from 1924 to 1926, lie will return to renew old friendships and make new ones during his cruises in the flagship H.M.A.S. Canberra, says a London report. In an eventful career of nearly 40 years he has commanded two naval colleges and a naval barracks, a fleet cruiser, and a foreign station cruiser subdivision, and brings to the appointment large experience. His war experience of cruiser tactics, both enemy, and our own. and their reactions on the convoying of troops and foods, will lie of value, for he served in a cruiser which was rushed from China to Australia, then the Cape, and finally to the North Sea.

THIRTY-NINE YEARS AGO. Entering the Navy in 1897, Admiral Lane-Poole served as a lieutenant on board the cruiser Juno in the Channel Fleet in 1905-1906. The following year he was appointed to H.M.S. Vernon, the torpedo-boat school at Portsmouth, to qualify as a torpedo specialist. In this capacity he served in the battleship Venerable in the Atlanitc Fleet from 1909 to 1911. In May, 1912, he became torpedo-boat officer of the armoured cruiser Minotaur, flagship of the China Station. On August 6. 1914. the Minotaur, flying the flag of ViceAdmiral T. H. M. Jerram, with the Hampshire and Newcastle, in company, sailed for Yap. the German telegraph centre in the Pelew Group, in search of the enemy cruiser Emden, but only a German collier was found, and it was sunk. The Minotaur opened fire on the wireless station at 4500 yards with 7.5 lyddite shells. It. a lew minutes the 200 feet steel trellis mast .tumbled down and the whole station and oil stores were irretrievably on fire. In half an hour the ships were away to rejoin the rest of the squadron. AVAR DAYS. In September, the possibility of an attack on the Australian and New Zealand Expeditionary Forces by Admiral Von Spce’s squadron made the problem of the escort of their convoy mi urgent one. The Minotaur was one of the China ships selected for this purpose, the admiral transferring his flag ashore at Singapore; but for various reasons, including the activities of the Emden in the Indian Ocean, tV’ great convoy did not sail from St. George’s Sound until November 1. Captain Kiddle of the Minotaur was in command, and with him were H.M.A.S. Melbourne and H.M.A.S. Sydney, and the Japanese battle cruiser Ibuki.. On that day the battle of Coronal was fought, and the Good Hope and Monmouth sunk. The risk of Von Spec making an attack on South or West Africa then became imminent. The only slop with sufficient speed to reinforce the Cape Squadron before Von Spee could arrive was the Minotaur, and five days after leaving Australia she was ordered to the Cape. The Minotaur became the flagship of Rear-Admiral King-Hall at the Cape, but after the destruction of Von Spec’s squadron at the Battle of the Falklands on December 8, she was ordered home to join the Grand Fleet. In January, 1918, Commander LanePoole, as lie then was, became the mining expert on the staff of ,the Adimal of Mining. Rear-Admiral L. ClintonBaker, at Grangemouth, where new mines were being manufactured for the great anti-submarine belt in the North Sea. As a captain, after his service at the’ Jervis Bay College, Lane-TWe commanded the cruiser Cambrian in the Atlantic Fleet and was Captain of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich from 1929 to 1931.

When the Admiralty, in 1931, decided to"reinstitute a South American subdivision ot the America and West Indies Squadron, he was selected as the first 'Commodore. During, the Chilean rebellion of 1932, he was at Callao for four months protecting British interests

His last appointment was ns Commodore of the' Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport.