THE NEW COMMODORE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 12

THE NEW COMMODORE.

DISTINGUISHED CAREER.

KEEN INTEREST IN SPORT.

SMALL YACHT BROUGHT OUT.

Welcomed with a salute of 11 guns, the newly-appointed. commodore of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, Commodore Geoffrey Blake, D.5.0., arrived at Auckland from Wellington yesterday morning on board the flagship, H M.S. Dunedin. The cruiser arrived at 9.30, and after acknowledging the salute berthed immediately at Sheerlegs Wharf. Commodore Blake enters upon his threo years' command of the New Zealand station with a most favourable impression of the Dominion, gaiued as the result of conversations with Earl Jellicoe, with whom ho served on 11.M.5. Iron Duke iri the Battlo of Jutland. He states that Earl Jellicoe retains the most pleasing recollections of his term as Governor-General of Now Zealand, and it is quite possiblo that he might visit New Zealahd next year, since he will probably be attending a conference in Australia of the British Legion, in the leadership of which he sue'ceeded Earl llaig.

The Boxer Rebellion.

Commodore Blake first saw active service when, after completing his education at Winchester College, England, he went to China as a midshipman in the last stages of the Boxer' Rebellion. The return voyage to England was made in a small gunboat, which, although powered by steam, also carried sail, and it was under sail that the major portion of the voyage was made. i

Service in England and the' Mediterranean as a sub-lieutenant and lioutenant followed, and after about two years Commodore jßlako specialised for a while in gunnery in England, accepting then his first, command at Capetown, South Africa. Service there was followed by experimental and research work in gunnery in Britain. When war broke out he served for two 1 and a-half. years as gunnery officer under Earl Jellicoe in the Iron Duke, the armouring and final tests of which Commodore Blake had supervised. Naval Attache at Washington.

At Jutland with Jellicoe, he was I awarded the D.5.0., and when Earl Beatty succeeded t<s the supreme command ho served on the Queen Elizabeth; remaining with the battleship until the end of the war. In 1919 he was appointed naval attache at the British Embassy at Washington, remaining for two years. A term at the Naval War College followed. Commodore Blake was appointed director of the Naval Staff College at Greenwich in 1926, and later was chief-of-staff to the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet.

An enthusiastic yachtsman, Commodore Blake has brought with him a small yacht. He is a keen huntsman, motorist and fisherman, and has enjoyed sport among the tarpon in the region of Panama.