38 PRIZE LAW DURING THE WORLD WAR
result of naval action alone.! Likewise in the case of the Sulman
Pak and other vessels > Sir Henry Duke held in accordance with
Lord Stowell’s decision in La Bellone (2 Dodson 343; 2 Eng. P.
C. 227) that joint captures by military and naval forces were
“entirely outside the statute” and that to establish a joint cap-
ture requires proof that both forces were in fact participants
in the operation of capture. In this case Sir Henry found that
the military forces did not in fact take any part in the capture
and that in consequence the ships by which the captures were
actually made were entitled to prize bounty.
But where two aeroplanes assisted two monitors in the de-
struction of a German cruiser, the pilots and observers of the
aeroplanes, who were attached to the monitors, were allowed a
share in the prize bounty awarded.®* And where a seaplane co-
operated with a warship in destroying a submarine, prize bounty
was awarded the officers and crews of both.
Naturally there were cases, when enemy vessels were sunk,
where it was difficult for the Prize Court to determine the num-
ber of persons on board and therefore to calculate the amount
of the prize bounty earned * but where no accurate figures were
available The Court accepted the estimate of the claimants.’
In the case of the Battle of Jutland ¢ where eleven German ships
were destroyed by the British fleet it being impossible to con-
tend that any one ship or squadron was responsible for the
sinking of any particular enemy ship the battle was treated as a
“joint or common enterprise” and prize bounty amounting to
£22,685 was awarded to the whole fleet. Sir Henry Duke after
referring to the admiration and gratitude of the nation added
that “the record of these proceedings will be one of the most
treasured documents in the archives of this court.”
*H. M. S. Triumph and Usk, VI Lloyd 130; 11 ibid., 424.
III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 1007. See also the case of the Feldmarschall
(ibid., 549), where the Naval Prize Tribunal held that it was not sufficient,
in order to establish a right to share in the proceeds of prize on the part
of asserted joint captures, that the capture took place in the course of a
joint enterprise. In this case it was held that the Feldmarschall was cap-
tured by the fleet alone, though the military forces were cooperating, and
consequently the army had no right to a share in the prize bounty.
The Konigsberg, VI Lloyd 414. “The U OC 70, X ibid., 154.
* For example the Carmania, V Lloyd 30; II Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 77.
¢X Lloyd 148; III Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 892. A curious case was that of
the Den of Glamis (So. Afr., p. 9), where the Prize Court of South Africa
awarded bounty to the officers and crew of a British ship, which was char-
tered to a German steamship company, for having seized the cargo at the
neutral port of Beira upon the desertion of the ship of the German super
cargo, and for having navigated it to the port of Durban. It was not a case
of capture but of the taking possession of the ship by the British officers and
crew already on board and conducting it to a British port.
