MONOWAI READY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 79, 13 January 1949, Page 3

MONOWAI READY

Voyage This Month

MANY CHANGES MADE IN RECONVERSION

Ready to re-sume her pre-war service across the Tasman after two years’ reconversion necessitated by her waf service, the Union Company’s liner Monowai is expected to make her first voyage with passengers on January 28. In the charge of her wartime commander, Captain G. B. Morgan, D. 5.0., D.S.C., she will leave Wellington on January 28 for Sydney. Later she will iqake alternate voyages from Sydney to Auckland and Wellington.

As the ship has been refurnished and refitted, the 384 passengers whom she can carry on each Tasman voyage will find virtually a new ship, and only those who have followed her career closely will kno>v they are travelling in a one-time armed merchant cruiser, a vessel whose wartime services took her to the beaches of Normandy. Together with the Awatea, the Monowai carried the Union Line’s house flag to ports all over the world in the war years; but, more fortunately than the Awatea, came through unscathed.

Only One Mast

Outwardly the Monowai has been altered a little In profile. Her mainmast has been removed, while the hydraulic cargo cranes have been replaced by derrick posts. In addition the well-deck has been filled in to provide better quarters for her crew. The promenade deck has been screened in with glass from the bridge to a point amidships for weather protection. Although . they were continually hampered by industrial disputes, the contractors have almost re-created her from a bare framework. Extensive alterations have Improved passenger accommodation and in addition airconditioning has been installed. Promenade space has been enlarged and the theatre has been equipped to show films. The vessel will be linked by radio-telephone to the telephone services in Australia and New Zealand.

Wartime Service

For her wartime service the Monowai was fitted out in the Devouport naval base in 1040, and later in the same year went into service as an armed merchant cruiser of the' Royal New Zealand Navy. In 1943 she was requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport to carry troops for the invasion of Europe and, in a short time, became an assault ship. In this capacity she was in the first line during the invasion of Normandy and in the year following D Day she carried over 73,000 troops to the Continent. Indicative of the turning of action of the war, later voyages took her to Odessa, Taranto, Karachi and Singapore. She returned to Sydney in August, 1946, for her reconversion.