I have received (in the UK) a copy of your recent book “Mutineers”. An interesting and probably definitive account of a sad episode.
I have one request (a very minor one, I agree) if the book is re-published. On p. 263 in footnote 37 you write that “The Memoirs of Rear Admiral Claude L Cumberlege R.N. (Ret). were provided by the Cumberlege family to David Stevens and (are) now located in the Naval Historical Society Museum at Garden Island in Sydney.”
In fact, I provided a scanned copy of parts of the memoir (Books 2 & 3) at the end of 2017 to the Society using the good services of John Smith (researcher) and David Michael (president).
My interest arose from writing a biography of the Admiral’s son, Michael. The book The Extraordinary Life of Mike Cumberlege SOE (Fonthill Media; on Amazon) appeared in 2018. It has a lot in it about the Admiral.
The questions you pose about the Admiral’s (then Capt) conduct on p. 254 are all perfectly valid. The answer(s) are also quite clear to me. He was not a disciplinarian, he got on well with Australians, understood the context (years away from Australia etc) and was relaxed about any problems that might result. Over-confident, maybe, but also (as his subsequent encounter with Dal Rudd underlined) tolerant and understanding after long service in wartime conditions. Hardly a “hanging offence.”
One thing you might well have also mentioned in a book for an Australian readership, is that Claude Cumberlege, as commander of HMAS Warrego, successfully landed assault parties in Kaba Kaul, New Britain in Aug. 1914 (the first Australian to die in WW1, Capt. Brian Pockley of the Army Medical Corps, was killed in this action), and also sailed the Warrego 200 miles up the Sepik river in New Guinea searching for a German warship. Then in 1916, as commander of HMAS Brisbane, through quick thinking he averted sabotage by striking “Wobblies” dockworkers in Sydney who were trying to prevent the ship sailing.
Incidentally, I’m afraid you were overly optimistic in stating that Claude Cumberlege (p. 222) “retired to a life of bliss with his family sailing the Mediterranean.” What happened to him and his brood is in my book, but the first thing was that he was estranged from his first wife Laetita (who he had barely seen for 7 years 1913-20; she died of breast cancer in Paris in 1930). His life afloat was beset by money problems, he eventually settled in Cap d’Antibes and built a house there, but was forced to flee to England over the Pyrenees when the Italians invaded in June 1940. He then served in the Home Guard in Sussex in WW2 and subsequently trekked around the Med. with his four younger children and second wife Norah who had affairs wherever she went. He died in 1963 aged 86.
Robin Knight
Author