NEW NAVAL SLOOP

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18398, 16 May 1934, Page 13

NEW NAVAL SLOOP

OFFICERS APPOINTED A LIEUTENANT’S BRAVERY The list of officers appointed to HALS. Leith, the new oil-burning sloop that is to replace HALM. Veronica on the New Zealand and Southern Pacific station, has been received by the naval authorities at Auckland. The Leith was launched at Devonport or September !) and is expected to reach New Zealand later this year. Captain 0. Bevir will command the sloop, and the other officers arc Lieutenant <’. H. C. Singleton, Sub-Lieu-tenant f\ F. Arkwright. Mr B. 11. Brett., gunner, and Mr ■(’. (!. Kerswil), warrant engineer. Lieutenant- Singleton holds the Stanhope Gold Medal, awarded by the Royal Humane Society for the bravest deed of each year. On the night of August 13, 1930, he w.as in command of a motor-sampan which was returning to HALS. Peterel, at anchor in the Yangtze-Kinng River, off Hankow. The river is notorious for its dangerously fast current, its powerful .undertow and its contaminated water, 'in which it is dangerous even to bathe. The lieutenant had reached the ship’s deck when a stoker, who was unable to swim, fell 'backward off the boat into the water and quickly drifted astern. Without pausing to remove any of his clothing, Lieutenant Singleton dived in and reached the drowning man, who, however, struggled so violently that his woulil-be rescuer had to let him go and lost him in the darkness. The motor-sampan came up, bul Lieutenant Singleton gallantly instructed the steersman not to stop for him but to go on downstream. A search for 1U miles failed, to locate tile stoker, ami it was only with the greatest difficulty that on the return journey Lieutenant Singleton himself could he found.