Aussie, Aussie, Aussie - Eh, Eh, Eh!

When it comes to training and resolve, it seems the Canadian Navy might have more in common with its Australian counterpart than with its British one:

Vice-Admiral Robertson said Canada's "conduct-after-capture training" has been stepped up to reinforce one simple message -- one that's standard in western navies -- if they are ever taken prisoner by a hostile force: "No media interviews. No written correspondence. Nothing."

...

Vice-Admiral Robertson refused to criticize the behaviour of the British sailors and stopped short of saying Canadian sailors would have fought any foreign attempt to capture them on the high seas, but he dropped sharp hints that they would have put up more of a fight than their British counterparts.

Vice-Admiral Robertson said Australian sailors faced a similar threat from Iranian forces in December 2004 on the sea border between Iraq and Iran. The incident was disclosed last week by the BBC.

He described how the Australian sailors were able to remain on the ship they had boarded. He said they mounted "a display of weapons for deterrence to keep the Revolutionary Guards away and then were extracted by helicopter later."

Vice-Admiral Robertson appeared to back away from a suggestion that a Canadian boarding party might behave similarly in a similar situation.

"It's got more to do with avoiding the situation to begin with and making sure one is never in a position where a boarding party can be isolated in the manner that Cornwall's boarding party was," he explained. "In the face of warships, with the firepower they have, I would not expect groups in small boats would challenge a boarding party." [Babbler's emphasis]

It is wonderfully reassuring to see evidence that the Canadian Navy have a better understanding of their own relative abilities and strengths than that shown by the Royal Navy recently. Nelson would have been rolling in his grave.