Captain W B MacDonald DSO

Captain W B MacDonald DSO
Title:Captain
First name:W
Middle name(s):B
Surname:MacDonald
Post-nominals:DSO
Year elected:1909
Last year on list:1937
MembershipNaval

He attended the Collegiate School in Victoria, Vancouver Island, and then joined the naval training ship Britannia at Portsmouth.

His naval career took him to China during the Boxer Rebellion, and later ass captain of HMS Niobe, Macdonald was deployed from UK to Halifax, Canada, to provide the first ship of any size to begin forming the Royal Canadian Navy.  He arrived to a great fanfare on 22 October 1910 but, on her first trip as HMCS Niobe, the ship ran aground and was badly damaged.



The inquiry found that the grounding was due to faulty navigation.  The navigating officer was partly at fault because, although his plan was sound, it took no account of tides and currents, which were considerable.  The ship then ran into fog and the shore lights were obscured.  The waters she was in were too treacherous to leave the officer of the watch (Lieutenant Lord Alistair Graham) alone, and he was criticised for not calling the navigating officer or the captain.  The board's finding was that the captain couldn't be disciplined every time someone made a mistake and it was recognised that he had left proper orders and, had they been carried out, he would have been informed of the shore lights not being sighted in time to take the necessary steps to avoid an accident.

During WWI he was commanding officer of the Suez Canal defence forces and later acted as liaison and naval transport under General Allenby in Palestine where he was awarded the DSO and Mentioned in Despatches.

On 24 March 1931, he was elected as the first Commodore of the newly-formed Fareham Sailing and Motor Boat Club.

He died in August 1937 serving in an unknown capacity in Germany.


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