This month in history

[Brian Probetts (Site Admin)]

Peter Hogg
RNZNA South Canterbury

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
11 March 1915 Britain announces blockade of German ports and issues the Reprisals Order, banning neutral parties trading with Germany.

16 March 1916 Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man responsible for the build up of the German Imperial Navy before the war and the aggressive naval strategy pursued during the first two years of the war, tenders his resignation as Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office to Kaiser Wilhelm II in protest over restrictions on U-boat activity. Somewhat to Tirpitz’s surprise, Kaiser Wilhelm II accepts it.

16 March 1917 HMS Achilles and Dundee sink the German raider SMS Leopard (formerly the British freighter SS Yarrowdale) 240 miles northeast of the Shetland Islands. Both Achilles and Dundee are awarded battle honours.

11 March 1918 HMS Retriever, Sturgeon and Thrush sink SM UB-54 in the North Sea.

10 March 1919 In her last voyage as a hospital ship, HMHS Maheno departs Britain for New Zealand.

[John Arton]

An interesting snippet in our local newspaper.
In WW1 1/3 {that's almost 100,000} of the seamen serving in the Royal Navy were aged between 14 and 17. At that time the minimum age for combat duties was 18.
rgds
JA

[j.sabourn]

#2. Must have been in that era that the poem " The boy stood on the burning deck a jelly piece in his hand.............................................. ...........Somewhere in piece he was his Mothers pride and joy and his Fathers .................................." Heard it many a time was one of my Mothers favourite pieces of verse. Bet Marian knows at least one version of it. JS

[Richard Quartermaine]

The boy stood on the burning deck, His feet were covered in blisters, He had no trousers to his back, So he had to wear his sister's.
Richard

[gray_marian]

#3, Well of course John there is the original below, I like this one also,

The boy stood on the burning deck.
Alas, he is no more
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2S04

but pray do tell your mum's in full


The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.

The flames roll'd on...he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call'd aloud..."Say, father, say
If yet my task is done!"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again he cried
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair;

And shouted but one more aloud,
"My father, must I stay?"
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way,
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream'd above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound...
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.


Liverpool born Felicia Dorothea Hemans (nee Browne) was born in 1793 and had her first poems (dedicated to the Prince Of Wales) published in 1808.
A woman ahead of her time, her poetry offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials with her most successful book, RECORDS OF WOMEN (1828) chronicling the lives of woman both famous as well as anonymous.

[happy daze john in oz]

We must be ever greatful that young men of the era were prepared to forge their age, without them who knows where we would be bow!

[Braid Anderson]

On 4th March 1942 the Australian sloop HMAS Yarra was sunk while trying to protect her small convoy south of Java. Her captain, Lt-Cdr Rankin, placed his little ship - armed with 3 x 4inch guns - between the convoy and the overwhelming odds of three Japanese heavy cruisers and two destroyers, and fought bravely to the last. With two of her three guns out of action, the ship on fire and starting to sink, Rankin gave the order to abandon ship, shortly before being killed by an 8inch salvo that hit the bridge. Leading Seaman R Taylor, captain of the last remaining gun, ignored the abandon ship call, and continued firing, until he was killed when the gun was hit and put out of action.
May they rest in peace.

[eric fisher]

Of course the most notorious was;

The boy stood on the burning deck
His as ole to the mast
Swore he wouldn't move a bl..dy inch
'Till the Bos'n had passed.

Typical of my era, but then we were only kids.