One for Petty Officer Tom
"Curious blunders sometimes occur in official letterwriting. During the Zulu War, the captain of a man-of-war lying off the coast of Africa received an order to take up position as close to a certain fort as possible, but on no account to bombard it. After a while the captain replied that he had taken his ship as near the fortress as possible "but as the said fort is 300 miles inland, I will, according to instruction, make no attempt to bombard it."
Aberdeen Evening Express - Wednesday 07 June 1893