A WORK OF MERCY.
THE MARAMA.-S CAREER. CARRYING SICK AND WOUNDED. A SPLENDID RECORD. TTith her arrival in Auckland yesterday jjiorning the ambulance carrier and ex- i hospital ship Marama entered on the t jggt stage of her eventful career as a' j unit in New Zealand's war preparedness.. \ Apart from the magnificent work that n s he has done as a hospital ship, her his- i t toiy provides many interesting episodes. I c CARRIED 20,000 SOLDIERS. I s She was commissioned on her work of i, jnercy in 1915, sailing on her first voyage j on December 5 of that year from Wei- j-, jjngton. She was fitted out with every- J ] thing that could possibly be thought of! < 8 t the time to make her fit for her' c highly important duties as a carrier of; . the sick and wounded. Her arrival at 1 1 Auckland this morning marks tho con- j I elusion of her eighth trip, in addition to j i many, passages made between ports on;] the other side of the world. She ten- i ] dered between Havre and Southampton' 1 with patients, carrying an estimated 1 i number of SOOO Imperial troops and 3000 j 1 Hun prisoners in this part of her aetivi- j * ties. She also plied between Salonika, ; Malta, and Alexandria with wounded and ! 1 sick to the number of oyer 1000. ln all | Ehe made four trips between Bombay and Alexandria, with troops to the number 1 of ISOO. Altogether she has carried about ' 5000 Now Zealand soldiers between Eng-j land and New Zealand, one direct voyage ' being from Marseilles to New Zealand, i : The total number of soldiers carried by j the vessel is in the vicinity of 20,000. ! In the course of her duties as hospital ship she has covered -225,000 miles, and Sas visited well over thirty different ports in England, France, Egypt, Balkan ' Peninsula, South Africa. America, and •Malay States, in the Mediterranean, Aus- j tralia, and New Zealand. ADVENTURE WITH SUBMARINE. As a rule she was respected by submarines as a hospital ship, being luckier in this respect than many other ambulance carriers. In the early days of the war, she frequently encountered these instruments of Germany's war activities. Ja January, 1917, she had one of her most exciting experiences (with these ruthless antagonists. She had picked tip the lifeboat of the steamer Brook■wooxL, of Middlesborough, with thirteen men, one of whom was dead. It wa= learned from the survivors that their vessel had been unceremoniously torpedoed, and -that the rest of the crewwere still adrift in anotlter lifeboat. Subsequently those on the Marama thought they sighted the second lifeboat, hut on drawing near to investigate, discovered that it was another Hun submarine. The .Marania promptly turned about, and made her escape without giving the Huns an opportunity to get to very close quarters. Before they got out of sight of the submarine, they saw a Spanish steamer held up by the submarine, which fired a salvo across the neutral steamer's bows. The last that those on the Marama saw of the incident was the German officer boarding the Spaniard to examine her. ANOTHER MEMORABLE EVENT. Another memorable event in her career happened during a trip from Durban to Capetown, when she was covering the same voyage as that in which the Waratah mysteriously disappeared. On Sunday, May 27, 1917. she struck a heavy south-west gale, which increased in violence until incredibly big seas were running. One huge wave was ultimately shipped, filling the spar and promenade decks, doing much damage to deck fittings, and washing four men overboard. Of these two were miraculously saved by being washed back on another wave. The other two, Lieut. Harrington, of the Connaught Bangers, and Private Cobb. New Zealand Medical Corps, were not seen again. On her last trip to England, the Marama called at Albany, where she received orders to proceed to Singapore. This visit to the Malay States was the result of a petition from the residents to Queen •Mary, asking that the wives and children of State officials, who had been deprived of their leave by the war. for four and a-half years, should be given the opportunity of making the voyage On the Marama. The climate had had such severe effects on these people that all of them were practically invalids. About six hundred Europeans were carried to England on this occasion. The Marama sailed early this afternoon for Wellington. Ly-ttelton and Port Chalmers. At the last-named port she will dismantle, and end her career as a hospital ship.
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Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 170, 18 July 1919, Page 7
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766A WORK OF MERCY. Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 170, 18 July 1919, Page 7
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