ADMIRAL COLLARD

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2145, 17 April 1928, Page 6

ADMIRAL COLLARD

Referring to the recent occurrences on H.M.S. Royal Oak, in which RearAdmiral Collard and the captain and the commander were involved, J.J.R. writes in the Sydney Morning Herald as follows:

In those far-away days of the " on the knee " riots in Portsmouth I was a member of Collard's gunnery class, and I remember that while thd press of England was trying him for that famous order his sense of humour did not desert him for a single moment. He was, in his physical aspect, as much like a cherub as it was possible for a man ever to be, and, apropos of this cherubic charm, he made three drawings of himself while he awaited his trial. Drawing No. 1 represented a cherub, wing-bedecked, with Collard's face, and the caption, " As my mother sees me." No. 2 showed the same cherub with a mouth as wide as a barn door, from which issued the famous, or, as some thought, infamous order, "On the knee ! " This was labelled, "As the sailors see me." No. 3 drawing showed Mr Cherub wearing heavy sea boots, and with them kicking sailor men all round the decks of a dreadnought. This last he called, " As the public see me." " ON THE KNEE." Will you permit me to add a fourth verbal Isketch of Collard as I and many others saw him? The general public should know that the "on the knee " order was a very ordinary one, well understood of sailors, and it was given usually when men, standing ten deep perhaps, were listening to instructions from any officer. The men in the front rows were ordered on the knee to make it passible for those behind to see and hear their instructor plainly. It had no other significance. On the day of Collard's fiasco in the front rank of the squad was a great drunken lout named Moody, and he it was who caused all the trouble when he declared that "he wouldn't bend his knee to the Virgin Mary, much less to any gunnery instructor," and the riot was on. The order was inlsisted upon, and later the squad was dismissed. That night, after much beer and inflammatory oratory, the men proceeded to tear things up by the roots. I was among the bluejackets sent on the double to help quell the resulting disorder, and I shall not forgot seeing Collard, a very small man, walking through that bunch of fighting-mad heroes, utterly unafraid, and, what is more, utterly unmolested. He showed that night that he was a real captain of men. He was untouched, as I say, but a warrant officer named Green got a clout on the side of the head with a bottle that put him out of commission for a few days. COURT-MARTIAL.

Collard was sent to Wale Island to await his court-marital, and'any man who knew the rights of the affair was allowed to see him there', and so aid him in preparing his defence. I watched hundreds of men form a line as long as a city block, who were all anxious to save him from being made the victim of a blasphemous rowdy. Well, truth prevailed, as it has a habit of doing, and Collard was freed to become an admiral of the greatest navy in the world. Green recovered, and Moody did five years for his little burst of mutiny. The consensus of opinion among those who knew and served under Collard was that he was the fairest, squarest, and hardest of officers; he played no favourites; " cook's son, duke's son," were all one to him, and his rcedrs o aaw.idfd to him, and his record as a gunnery instructor was a particularly fine one. He turned out great gunners, sparing them nothing of hard, grilling work; he took them into a hell of endeavour after perfection, but he went with them into that hell like the game little fighting cook he was, and apparently still is. I, of course, know nothing of the

merits of the present case, but I dare swear that Collard is still as just, as ha)rd, and as fair as in those days in Portsmouth. Maybe he will dig out those old sketches, and over them grin sardonically while he is being " tried " once more in the press of the country he has served long and well.