A TRIBUTE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 276, 21 November 1928, Page 8

A TRIBUTE

ABERDEEN’S WAR RECORD. Earl Jellicoe, who has been making his first appearance in Scotland as the new president of the British Legion, in succession ,to the late Earl Haigc, received the freedom of Aberdeen on September 26. He paid a tribute to Aberdeen’s splendid war record. The trawler reserve of the R.N.R., he said, was inaugurated at Aberdeen in 1901, and the first 30 skippers and the first 90 ratings were enrolled at Aberdeen. These men were the nucleus of the goat auxiliary navy of 1914-18 and performed absolutely invaluable service. During the war the Admiralty took over from Aberdeen 241 steam trawlers and 20 steam liners and drifters for patrol and minesweeping work, and 662 skippers and fully 7000 ratings were enrolled at Aberdeen. The supply of fish for the country was maintained by 70 Aberdeen vessels. Fishing under the protection of the Peterhead patrol, the risks run by these gallant fishermen were not too well known.

Lord Jellicoe told how an Aberdeen minesweeping trawler, Dorothy Gray, was the first vessel of that class to sink a German submarine on November 23, 1914, near the entrance to Scapa FlowBut for that, said the Admiral, it was more than probable that more frequent attempts would have been made by German submarines to enter the base at Scapa Flow, and the results might have indeed been most serious. He also described how the armed Aberdeen trawler John Gilman sank a German submarine off Whitby on August 3, 1918. When the vessel failed to ram. the submarine’s periscope, he said, it dropped three depth charges, and the wreck of the submarine was afterwards located by divers. “There are many classes of men to whom I take my hat off in admiration,” said Lord Jellicoe, “but there are few whom I admire more than the fishermen w’ho earn their livelihood in the North Sea. These men are real sailors in every sense of the word.”