Martin Gilbert Quote

That same week, on distant Lake Nyasa, in central Africa, a British naval officer, Commander E.L. Rhoades, sailed his gunboat, the Gwendolen, with its single 3-pounder gun, across the lake from the British port of Nkata Bay to the tiny German port of Sphinxhaven, thirty miles away. There he opened fire on, and captured, the German gunboat Wissman, whose commander, Captain Berndt, had not yet heard that war had broken out between Britain and Germany. ‘Naval Victory on Lake Nyasa,’ was the headline in The Times.

Martin Gilbert

That same week, on distant Lake Nyasa, in central Africa, a British naval officer, Commander E.L. Rhoades, sailed his gunboat, the Gwendolen, with its single 3-pounder gun, across the lake from the British port of Nkata Bay to the tiny German port of Sphinxhaven, thirty miles away. There he opened fire on, and captured, the German gunboat Wissman, whose commander, Captain Berndt, had not yet heard that war had broken out between Britain and Germany. ‘Naval Victory on Lake Nyasa,’ was the headline in The Times.

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About Martin Gilbert

Sir Martin John Gilbert (25 October 1936 – 3 February 2015) was a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works on Winston Churchill, the 20th century, and Jewish history including the Holocaust.
He was a member of the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War.