The Royal Oak Affair

These may be tolerant times but there are still a few oaths that a man - particularly one regarded as an officer and a gentleman - uses with circumspection. In 1928 the list was longer. Even so, when Rear-Admiral Collard so forgot himself as to swear at Bandmaster Percy Barnacle during a dance aboard "HMS Royal Oak" he lit a fuse so out of proportion to what he said that even now the mind marvels at the explosion that followed. "Royal Oak" was in Malta at the time. 1928 was, as the inter-war years go, one of the least troubled. The world was recovering from the ravages of the Great War; the Wall Street crash was still a year away and the German renaissance undreamed of. Britannia's right to rule the waves was unquestioned, let alone challenged, and for officers of the Royal Navy there could be few more agreeable appointments than to historic, sunny, civilized Malta. Yet by the utterance of a single word, this happy idyll was shattered - with truly remarkable consequences.