OLD SHIPMATES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20503, 3 January 1935, Page 13

OLD SHIPMATES.

Two Commodores Meet on Oronsay. MEMORIES OF Q-SIIIPS. (Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, This Day. Life aboard ship is always fascinating! to a longshoreman, and men who have been shipmates at times are indeed interesting when they turn the calendar hack a few years. When the two bestknown enior officers of a famous shipping line are in the same ship, one as master and the other as passenger, there is usually . something to be said, and Commodore C. G. Matheson, D. 5.0., R.D., I’.X.R., and Captain H. .Staunton. C.8.E., R.D., JLX.IL, each has his tale to relate of the Great War. On the Orient liner Oronsay, Conimoj dore Matheson is known as “captain,” or even plain “skipper,” but he is the only man of the Royal Naval Reserve running cast of Suez who may claim the title of commodore, R.N.R. There are now only six commodores of the reserve in service to-day, and the other five are in trans-Atlantic ships. This jovial man is twice commodore, however, for apart from his rank with the R.N.R. he is the senior master of the Orient Lino. For seven years, when he first took the sea seriously, this man trained aboard sailing ships as midshipman. In other words, lie has been through a hard school, and although those days are lost to most people alive to-day, he remembers them well, and with pride. Experience is the best teacher, and apparently it served the Orient captain well. Aboard the King’s yacht Britannia he received some serious naval training, but he soon decided that merchantmen were the ships for him. On cargo and small passenger steamers he worked for years as a deck officer, and finally “settled down” with the Orient Line. So for the last 33 years his name has been associated with that, company, and he has served in practically all of their ships. Thrilling Q-Ship Work. The Great War called him away from a less rigorous billet in 1914, and he was soon commanding destroyers. After several thrilling engagements with these craft he received an appointment as master of a “mystery ship,” Q-19, and for the rest of the war he played that dangerous game. He well remembers Lieut.-Commander W. E. Sanders, V.C., D. 5.0., of Auckland, who died in a Q-ship engagement. All the glamour associated with Q-ship work by an imaginathe public became grim reality to Commodore Matheson. His memories of that last two years of strife at sea are modestly few, but there is ahvavs a reason for “D. 5.0.” after a man s name. Lucky to be Alive. On an afternoon in March, 1917. little more than 20 miles from land, in the English Channel. Q-19 siglited an enemy submarine’s torpedo, which had failed to “take its depth.” That ton of sudden death rocketed enough to pass beneath Q-3 9, and the game was on. The Q-ship went through the usual decoy performances, and drew the Germans to the surface. The submarine immediately turned its two 4in guns on the apparently helpless steamer, which cunningly closed the range. After 25 minutes of suffering heavy gunfire Q-19 was ready. Her trap-doors dropped, her guns appeared. She played her trump cards —one 4in and four 12pounders. Before submersion was possible, U-85 stopped a devastating broadside from this “helpless” steamer, and within nine minutes the submarine went down for the last time. Sank in Harbour. But the Q-ship was limping badly, and returned to- Plymouth Sound in a sinking condition, towed by the destroyer Orestes. Just inside the shelter a vital bulkhead gave wav, and, tired of the fight, Q-19 settled* slowly down. The half-dozen dead and the two dozen wounded were sent ashore, but it was three months before Q-19’s ungainly hull was dragged again to the surface. Until nearly the end of the war Commodore Matheson carried on with that command. Another of his conquests was the settling of a submarine with depth charges. After the war the commodore had command in turn of the Orontes, Orvieto and Orsova and more modern ships of the Orient Company. In 1927 he did a war “refresher” course with the Navy. Three years ago lie was an A.D.C. to the King, and was with His Majesty at the opening of the new dock on the Clyde, and was subsequently appointed a member of the advisorv committee of the R N.R. at the Admiralty. In 1932 he was made a commodore of the Reserve, and in the same year took over the position of commodore of the Orient fleet front Captain Staunton. Ex-Commodore’s History. The man who handed over the reins of office to the Oronsay\s present master two years ago lias also had an interesting career. He is now taking the cruise aboard the Oronsav, and spends many an odd hour with Commodore Matheson talking over the past. v«.ar-‘ t iu in un aUnt ' 0n rtlS ° a|,e . ,,t SomC to sea. ' His 'oi ll l y *p revion's visit to Nc'w Zealand was in 1891. when a junior aboard the Cooleen, which loaded wool at Bluff. Alter serving with the Rodney and the Tamor he wont to steamers, starting with the Orient Line in 189(5 aboard the old Lusitania. His first command was the Opliir, in 1907. He was chief of that ship when she was taken over for the Royal tour in 1901. Since then lie has been master of the old Orontes, the Ormonde, Orama and Otranto. In 1914 he was called up for war service. and for two years and a half was blockading off the North of Scotland in the Otway, an armed merchant cruiser. Thereafter he was a commander of convoys from America. Canada, the Mediterranean and the White Sea. Only two ships were lost from any of his convoys. After the war he resumed with the Orient Line, and was made commodore of their fleet in 1927. He has been retired now for less than two rears.