STIRRING DEEDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1034, 26 July 1930, Page 10

STIRRING DEEDS

LAND AND SEA EXPLOITS! i BRITISH ARMY AND NAVY Much as the world needs disarma ment, or at least limitation of warlike preparations, there must ever remain a glamor about the heroic enterprises of the past and the men, regiments and ships that performed them. Australia and New Zealand will, for 1 instance, be particularly interested in I a function which is to take place m Buckingham Balace shortly (say s a J Loudon writer). This is the rect% tion by the King, who recently became j Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment, of , many officers and men—both serving and retired —of the Manchester Regi- j ment, which is one of the few British j corps that have served, in Australia. ! For the forbear of the 2nd Battalion, i the 96th Foot, was in New South 1 Wales in the ’forties of the last cell- | tury, with detachments in Van Die- j man's Land, as Tasmania was then j officially named. A company saw active . service i against the Maoris in New Zealand ! in 1544, and tile regiment bears a j battle honour commemorating its gai- ! lantry in that campaign. Today the j Ist Battalion, quartered in Shorn- ! cliffe —where Sir John Moore trained the famous Light Division for the Peninsular War—is commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Freyberg, V.C. The Ist Battalion has its roots as far back in British military history as the original Sth Foot, which was General Wolfe’s regiment, although it was not with him when he met a glorious death at the taking of Quebec. It had its share in the various campaigns of the army, including the South African War, where it was be sieged in Ladysmith and defended Caesar's Camp with great stubbornness. During the Great War it cap- | tured, with great loss, Givenchy dur ing operations in the salient iu Do- i eember, 1914, against vastly superior ; numbers. Tho battle honours that j were won by tho numerous battalions i of the regiment during the Great j War number 72, and are, spread over; all fronts.

While the Army is thus being again honoured, the exploits of the old- j time Navy are commemorated iu a notable little exhibition of a private collection of prints of battle pictures, ranging from the capture of Dainiate , in 1218 to the duel between the j Kearsage and the Alabama in 1801. The age of sail in fighting ships may ( be said to he enshrined in 45 prints dealing with 351 different encounters, \ from the days when the British Navy j was in its youth, through all its great campaigns to the Crimea, after which the American Civil War provides il- ! lustrations of sea-conflicts. Not only memories of the names that resound down the ages are here, but of glorious single combats. Hero \ is a picture of the tight between the Didon, one of the finest and fastest j French frigates afloat in ISOS, and j Phoenix, the smallest frigate in the British Navy. Didon had been sent to bring tho French squadron lying at Rochefort to join Villeneuve in readiness for the movement with the | Spanish Fleet which Napoleon had in I mind, and which, when it began, i ended in the tight of Trafalgar. An ! American merchantman gave Captain I Milias, of the Didon. the news that 1 a small British man-o-war was iu the neighbourhood, and lie went searching for the vessel, which had only half his weight of broadside aud only half his c-rew. Didon, a handier ship, got j in three broadsides before Phoenix ! could reply, and later raked her twice, destroying her rigging and spreading death over her crowded decks.

Captain Baker, despite his tattered sails, was able to manoeuvre sufficiently to prevent the Phoenix being raked again, and the vessels collided, Didon ramming Phoenix’s starboard quarter. The Frenchmen poured aboard Phoenix, only to be thrust hack again. Meanwhile a gun was dragged into Captain Baker’s cabin in the stern, and although the crew were picked off by French marksmen, got into action. its first shot swept 24 opponents out of existence. Then Didon began to pass alongside Phoenix, and as she did so the guns ot: both vessels came into action The lighter armament of the English ship were worked the faster, and the French trigate eventually tore herself away terribly damaged. Neither could move until the tattered sails had beeu restored to something like shipshape. The British were the quicker at this, and finally bore down, their guns loaded, upon the doomed’ Frenchman, which struck her colours. Even then Phoenix had more prisoners than her own crew, and had to deal with a plot to retake Didon, and also secure Phoenix, before carrying her prize into Plymouth. This collection is valued at £6,000.