Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on July 10, 2006 at 17:31:01 from 80.3.128.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: lost anchors was things to see in Ransom country (cont) posted by Owen Roberts on July 07, 2006 at 16:29:55:
the cadets at Shotley were tasked to recover the anchor as part of their naval training
It simply has to be this.
Commander Walker was taking up the appointment of Executive Officer at Shotley - evidently with little warning and with such urgency that he had to travel home overland from the Far East and had no opportunity for leave before starting work.
He states - WD Chaper XXII - that the Captain was an old friend.
The only conceivable explanation is that a major problem had arisen at the Naval Training College at Shotley and that Captain Curtledge had persuaded the Admiralty that his old friend Ted Walker was the only officer with appropriate seniority and ability to handle this. Walker was being put to considerable personal inconvenience, and to order a petty officer to take a boatload of cadets and recover a lost anchor would be a pretty minor favour for the Captain to grant him, especially as (I think it was) John Nicholls pointed out that resolving a real life problem is the best possible way to train people.