Death of Sir B. Sweet-

Escott Fiji Governor Who Tricked the Germans in 1914

Sir Bickham Sweet-Escott, M.A.,

K.C.M.G., who ended a distinguished career in the British Colonial Ser vice as Governor of Fiji between 1912 and 1918 (when he retired), died in Worthing, England, on April 10, at the age of 83.

Sir Bickham was the hero of the “Damn Fool Governor” episode of the First Great War. The full story was told in the “PIM” of May, 1931, and is worth re-telling.

How Suva Was Saved

IX/fR. MALCOLM MAXWELL, formerly lf± secretary to Sir E. B. Sweet-Escott, told this incident, in an article in “The Cornhill Magazine”, in 1930: It was, if I remember rightly, about 4 p.m. when I received and decoded a cer tain message from Apia, in Samoa. I took it straight to the Governor’s office.

I watched him closely, as I knew that its contents would —well, make him think.

He read the decoded message quietly, calmly—no change of expression showed on his face, but I noticed that he looked tired, grey. What he read was roughly this: That at 6 a.m. that morning Von Spee had put into the harbour of Apia with the “Scharnhorst” and “Gneisenau”, that their guns had been trained on the town and the guns’ crews had taken stations.

That no shot, however, was fired, the enemy cruisers weighing anchor at 7 a.m. and making for sea; thereafter steaming in a south-westerly direction.

The message was signed by the Administrator and was for the Governor of Fiji’s “information”, as Suva lay in the course of the enemy ships.

The Governor gave his orders im mediately.

I was to ring up the wireless office with instructions that they were to con centrate on receiving or “picking up” messages and that, if any was picked up in what appeared to be strange letter ing, they were to send the message forth with to Government House, noting if possible the approximate distance of the sender.

It was not long before an ominous message in an unfamiliar code was re ceived, and I was busy at decoding it.

The secret naval codes, the Civil codes, private codes between the flagships— Australian, French, Japanese —not one would fit it.

I told the Governor: “This, sir, must be a German message. The wireless people report that the sender was, when the message was picked up, about 250 miles away”.

THAT night the town was in a state of defence. The “Sealark’s” men were at action stations, manning the single three-pounder and the machine guns. The Fiji Defence Force was in the trenches. Taxi-drivers did a roaring trade and charged exorbitant prices to drive the women and children (and less war like of the men) to the interior and a place of safety beyond the range of German guns.

Suva was again in the war —really in it, it seemed now —but it was not till dawn that the reality would declare it self, for Von Spee would stand off till there was sufficient light to navigate the treacherous shoals and reefs which en circle the Islands.

At 5.30 a.m. the next morning His Ex cellency and I “stood to”. In the grey light of coming dawn we looked towards

the south, where Beqa Island stands sentry and where the first smoke of the mail steamers bringing news from home is seen by many an expectant eye, but this time we were not looking for letters and fresh faces, the telescope was sighted for a different view—grim, cold, de vastating.

What would the outline of two cruisers each with four funnels silhouetted against the pink of the dawn signify? It would mean death, and worse than death: within the half-hour a peaceful town with red roofs peeping through the luxuriant green of tropic foliage with but a handful of armed but harmless men, a crowd of weakling Indians, of laughing innocent Fijians, of refined and cultured Europeans, men of position and ladies of quality would become a shambles, the pink of the dawn would turn to crimson, the crimson of blood, red blood, and the scarlet of tongues of flame, of devas tating fire, ever swelling in volume, fanned and whipped by shrieking shell, the crash of explosives and the rumble of falling masonry. A town of almost voluptuous loveliness transformed into a spectacle of hideous ruin.

We waited anxious—more anxious as the moments passed and the grey light softened. Already the secret ciphers had been buried and their grave carefully concealed. Anxious eyes, too, below round the cable station looked out to wards the ocean, eyes of men who must be the first to feel the shock of high ex plosives, soldiers who must face death without a blow, without resistance.

We waited and the grey bloom changed to pearly white with daubs of pink about the horizon. Thank God, the seas were clear! An hour passed, and then bright daylight—but no enemy was sighted.

Suva was saved, so it seemed. But little was said. The taxi-drivers restored their fares of the night before to pleasant homes, dances became once more the evening pastime, once more there was calm, not again to be interrupted by an enemy’s presence.

SOME months later when Sturdee had cleared the Pacific, and the “Scharn horst” and “Gneisenau”, with their gallant Admiral, lay at the bottom of the ocean, a German merchantman was captured, as she tried to round the Horn and slip out of the way of the British Fleet, and in the mail bags was found a letter from a young officer on board the

“Gneisenau”. Only a paraphrase of the letter can be given from memory, but this is roughly what he wrote:— “At dawn we put into Apia intending to bombard the town, the flag of Britain now flying over Government House. We manned the guns, we trained them on the little capital—but did not fire.

“No, we thought of German hearts and German homes nestling there along the coral strand. We would strike one blow at England before the inevitable— our end. But we would not mingle our countrymen in the havoc. Auckland, Wellington, Sydney—too dangerous a

venture, they were too well protected.

“Suva, yes, Suva! There in her little outpost in the far Pacific Britain should fell the might of Germany, should hear the rumble of our Kaiser’s thunderbolt.

Anchor weighed, we turn and steam S.W. towards Suva.

“Right gallantly the two ships hurry on their grim mission, when 10, a message reaches us—it is in English, it is not even in code—Gott im Himmel, to the Admiral, “Australia”! It gives us warning, the “Australia” is near.

“Damn fool of an English Governor, he gives the show away. Yet, we thank

him from the bottom of our hearts for his warning. So the British bulldog with gnashing teeth, is waiting for us round the corner —how nearly we have been bitten! Our Admiral, Von Spee, gives a merry laugh and signals his orders.

Quickly we turn again and at full speed hasten to the north—towards Honolulu and neutral waters.”

A message had indeed been prepared on that fateful afternoon and broadcast by the Governor’s orders into the winds of the night and over the face of the dark waters for whoever could, to pick up and to use as he thought best. It ran:— To Admiral, HMS “Australia.”

“Thanks for message. Shall expect you to-morrow at daylight.”

Governor Of Fiji.

A simple message in plain and simple English, yet not for English but for Ger man ears, for, as His Excellency well knew, Patey with his ships was 2,000 miles away, and beyond receiving range!

Von Spee might have laughed differ ently had he known. As it is, let us hope that he died in happy ignorance of the truth, for happier were the fortunate ones in Suva, saved from a terrible fate by an English Governor’s “damn folly”!

Mr. J. D. (“Doug.”) Colclough, formerly of Bulolo, New Guinea, is serving as an observer with the RAAP in Rhodesia. He is the son of the well-known secretary of Bulolo Gold Dredging, Ltd., Mr. J.

Colclough, and was in New Guinea for about 3 i years, at first in charge of BGD’s agricultural department and later on one of the Co.’s dredges. His brother, Pilot E. J. Colclough is also in Rhodesia with the RAAF.

M. Oscar Meyer, who is known in Tahiti and New Guinea, has been discharged from the French Army in Saigon, and is remaining temporarily in a civil post in Indo-China which necessitates travelling into the interior.