SCR,—I think that most naval officers who took an active
part in the war at sea will have read Mr. Kennedy's .strictures on Admiral Pound with some repugnance. No doubt mistakes were made—it could hardly have been otherwise when so many 'clanging blows,' in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, were falling upon us: blows which were met by the profes- sional head of the Navy with iron nerve and in- domitable resolution.
It can, however, be safely left 'to Captain Roskill, an experienced naval officer, to present the whole picture in its true perspective without calling upon the assistance of a junior officer who apparently knew better than an ex-Commander-in-Chief, Mediter- ranean, the right way of complying with an executive signal to take astern on entering harbour when obvi- ously there was no farther danger of submarine attack.
There was, and is, a right and wrong way of com- plying with an executive signal, even if modified by local orders, and on the occasion quoted the Admiral appears to have issued a necessary correction.—Yours
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