1 JUNE 1991, Page 24

Sir: I can confirm everything in Captain Foster Brown's report.

I was his Navigating Officer and we discussed in detail every aspect of the search. Assuredly no signal was received from DTA/SW and had the Captain re- ceived any private message, I know he would have discussed it with me. I remem- ber that last week well, particularly as we had been involved in a methodical search with the squadron for a number of weeks. We sailed that Monday to resume this planned search. On Tuesday, we felt that to continue with this in an area which was logically not the most propitious was be- coming hopeless. Captain Foster Brown called for the chart and said he would endeavour to recreate the most probable movements of, and hence the most likely area where HMS Affray might lie. He returned with an 'X' on the chart, con- vinced that the Hurd Deep was this area.

`To-morrow', he said, 'we will search the Hurd Deep with type 162 and we will find Affray' . . . and this is just what we did. W.J. Diggle

Tellisford House, Tellisford, Bath