Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 97
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[Page 97]
but the truth was that we were never in one place long except the open sea and had no settled headquarters. The censorship in the Sydney was pretty severe at any rate as far as the English mail was concerned and one was allowed to say very little.
In those days, when the Huns some German ships were still at sea and the risk of capture of mail matter not remote a stringent censorship was necessary and understandable, but in later days when our job was to show the flag at every neutral port we could, to let the Germans know the policeman was still upon his beat the censorship became even more strict especially in Australia.
We were told off to make these regular visits and count the enemy shipping sheltering in harbour; in short we deliberately showed ourselves to the enemy Huns and yet all reference to our movements was prohibited in Australia.
The Australian mail was censored on board and to our disgust we found out later that a certain gentleman in Melbourne was put on to exercise a super censorship on matters of which in the nature of things he could know nothing.The whole system showed an ignorance of our actual job in these waters as colossal as it was irritating.
Surely the Admirals and Captains actually in the station were better judges of what was of value to the enemy than politicians and their henchmen who only get off their padded