From the Captain’s Report:. . . and hits were observed . . .
CHIEF Petty Officer Patrick O’Flaherty had been born a subject of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and for a short time he had been a subject of the Irish Free State before he enlisted in the British Navy and took the oath of allegiance to His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the early days a few ill-mannered and stupid individuals among his shipmates had questioned him teasingly or casually as to the reason for his enlistment, but no one of them had asked him twice; even the stupidest could learn the lesson which O’Flaherty dealt out to them.
There had been wild times and black doings in Ireland in those days, and O’Flaherty as a child in his early teens had been through scenes of horr
