Royal Oak

Even the King was perturbed. He called the First Lord of the Admiralty, William Clive Bridgeman, to Buckingham Palace and asked for details. Meanwhile the British public was flabbergasted by reports that there had been a "mutiny" aboard H. M. S. Royal Oak, Flagship of the First Battle Squadron of the British Mediterranean Fleet.

The truth, when it came out, was much less perturbing but more picturesque. There has been, it seems, a violent quarrel between the three superior naval officers aboard the Royal Oak, namely:

1) The presiding Rear Admiral of the Squadron, Bernard St. G. Collars;

2) The Captain of the Royal Oak, Kenneth Dewar; and

3) The Commander of the ship, Henry Martin Daniels.

Seamen explained, to landlubbers, last week, that a captain turns over the management of his ship to the commander and when an admiral comes on board, the captain then becoming (to use a military simile) the admiral's chief of staff. Ordinarily the possibilities of friction which lurk in such an interlocked command are smoothed over by the formulae of tradition. Last week, however, the captain and commander of the Royal Oak were understood to have filed complaints with the Admiralty alleging that Rear Admiral Collars had grossly and persistently overstepped the bounds of his authority and shamefully browbeaten his inferiors. Pending an investigation, all three officers were suspended, last week, and ordered to hurry from Malta to London, there to give an account of their quarrel.