Another Archer-Shee Case ?
I imagine that most people cannot help feeling. any more than I can, that Admiral Sir Dudley North has been shabbily treated by the Admiralty. He was relieved of his , post as Admiral Commanding North Atlantic in October 1940 for failing to intercept some French cruisers in the Straits of Gibraltar a month earlier. He felt strongly that an injustice had been done; so did two not unimportant eye-witnesses, the Governor of Gibraltar and Admiral Somerville, then com- manding Force H. Everything that has since come to light bout the incident supports this view, the most recent evidence in Admiral North's favour being that of the official naval historian in The War at Sea, a volume whose findings Their Lordships can hardly dismiss as though it were a pamphlet written by a partisan. Earlier in this century the Archer-Shee case, on which Mr. Emlyn Williams based The Winslow Boy, showed how stubborn the Admiralty of those days could be In refusing to right a wrong. Perhaps; if Admiral North had a Carson to intervene on his behalf, his appeal for a fair hearing would not go indefinitely unanswered. One cannot say categorically that justice has not been done; but it certainly does not appear to have been done.
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