The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-06-15
BRITAIN DENIES
AGAMEMnON HAS
Been SUNK
Reported in United States Battle
ship Was Lost in DardaneIIeS
CLAIM NEWS WAS SUPPRESSED
Torpedoine Said TO Have Occurred
In May But information Was
Stopped by Censor.

London, June 15.-The press bur
eau today issued statement deny
ing the report current in the United
States that the battleship Agamem-
non had been sunk in the Dardanel-
| les
New York, June 1.-THE latest adj
dition to the British naval losses is
the battleship Agamemon, one of
the most recent and largest of the
class of pre-dreadnaughts. She was
sunk at the Dardanelles in the latter
part of May, possibly by the German
submarine that sank the British battle
ships Majestic and Triumph on May
26 and q, respectively. All of the
officers and crew of the Agamemon
were saved.
Any one who has been in London
since the beginning of the war and
has had opportunities of meeting the
right persons knows that many of
the most important items of news cir
culate only by word OF mouth within
a limited circle. Things
which have been Suppressed by
the censorship and hence are
not included in the official
announcements or in the news which
papers are allowed to print and for
eign correspondents to put on the
cables, are known, of course. to, a
considerable number of officials and
their associates. 1t was from these
sources that confirmation of the sink
ing of the Agamemon was brought to
The Times on the Orduna yesterday.
The most notable previous instance
of the suppression of news of this
sort was the sinking of the super
dreadnaught Audacious by mine or
Submarine off the north coast of Ire,
land on Oct. 27 last. which has never
yet been officially admitted by the
British admiralty. The news of this
disaster was first made public in this
country by the passengers and crew
of the White Star liner Olympic,
which took the crew of the Audacious
off the sinking battleship. Even as
late as last month writer in an Eng
lish magazine had to refer to this in
cident as "the dreadnaught Audac-
ious, which according to the American
report" etc.
There have been other episodes of
the same sort. For example, the
British battle-cruiser Lion, flagship of
Admiral Beatty in the two cruiser ac-
tions in the North Sea, was said by
the Germans to have been disabled
in the second of these actions, that in
which the German armored cruiser
Bueoher was sunk. The British Adj
miralty declared that the Lion was
only slightly damaged, and the fact
that the German report was correct
did not become known until the
Christmas ship Jason, returning from
its voyage to the various European
countries to distribute toys, was not
allowed to put into Portsmouth Har-
Dor because the Lion was being re
paired in a dockyard there, and the
Admiralty did not wish the extent OF
leI Injuries W DtCUHlc hliONu
A wireless message from Berlin am
nouncing the loss of the Agamemon
was picked up in London, but the
censors would not permit its publioa-
ton or transmission over the cables.
The Agamemon is the largest war
ship except the Audacious which has
as yet been lost by either side. She
was launched in June, 1906, and dis
placed 16,500 tons She had speed
of 1879 knots, carried S65 men, and
mounted an exceptionally heavy ar
mament--four twelve-inch guns, ten
92-inch, and thirty-three smaller
weapons, besides five torpedo tubes.
She and her sister ship the Lord Mel
son were similar in a general way to
the Japanese battleship Satsuna,
launched about the same time which
mounts four twelve-nch, ten ten-inch
and fourteen 4.7-ineh guns. These
ships were results of the lessons of
the naval battle in the Sea of Japan
in May, 1905, which showed the value
of all big-gun ships