ACHILLES RECOMMISSIONING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23734, 15 February 1939, Page 18

ACHILLES RECOMMISSIONING

NEW COMMANDER APPOINTED CAPTAIN W. E. PARRY (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Jan. 19. The cruiser. Achilles, of the New Zealand Division, is expected r.t Portsmouth on January 26, to begin recommissioning before returning to New Zealand. She is due to leave Portsmouth again about February 21 and to reach the Dominion about the first week in May. Captain W. E. Parry, who attended the course at the Imperial Defence College during 1938, has been lent to the New Zealand Division for the command of the Achilles. Captain Parry is a torpedo specialist. He was torpedo officer of the Birmingham in the Grand Fleet during the latter part of the war. He passed out at the head of his term of cadets from Dartmouth and the training cruiser, Cumberland, and gained five “ firsts ” in his examinations for lieutenant. He has .also attended the Staff College course, and is an interpreter in French. The Achilles will be his first sea command, but in 1936-37 he commanded the Anti-Submarine Establishment at Portland. A New Zealander who has been lent by the Royal Navy to the New Zealand Division for service in the Achilles is Lieut. R. E. Washbourn (Nelson). He entered the navy in 1928, and, after a year’s training in H.M.S. Erebus at Devonport. -went to sea as a midshipman in H.M.S. London for two and a-half years in the Mediterranean station. After taking sub-lieutenant’s courses he was appointed to H.M.S. Warspite at Portsmouth.

He won the Ronald Megaw memorial prize for 1932-33, offered annually to the sub-lieutenant obtaining the /highest place in the examinations for lieutenant. This was while he was in the H.M.S. Diomede. Previously, he had won the Goodenough medal for gunnery. Other appointments to the Achilles on its recommissioning, loaned to the New Zealand Division by the Royal Navy, are: Commander D. L. M. Neame, Lieut. (T.) P. P. M. Green, Lieut. G. G. Cowburn, Lieut.-com-mander P. T. A. Love, Lieut. F. E. Brooking. Lieut. W. Moresby, Lieut. tO.) R. C. Sewell. Sub-lieut. (A.) E. W. Sykes, Subrlieut. I, F. Sommerville, Gunner E. J. Watts, Gunner, H. T. Burchell. Acting Warrant Shipwright P. S. Watt, Warrant Electrician J. F. Swift. Lieut. (E.) J. A. R. Abbott, Lieut. (E.) C. F. Morrow, Surgeon-lieut. C. G. Hunter, M. 8., 8.5., Paymaster-commander H. T. Isaac, Paymaster-lieut. J. D. Trythall. Acting Paymaster-sub-lieut. P. H. G. Richardson, Mr C. Carr, schoolmaster fC.W.O.), and Captain J. Dampen, R.M. The commander (engineer) and three warrant engineer officers will be appointed shortly.