BACK FROM SAMOA

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 66, 19 March 1930, Page 7

BACK FROM SAMOA

H.M.S. DUNEDIN RETURNS SICK-LIST OF SIXTY-ONE. CURIOS BROUGHT HOME. : ANCHOR OF THE ADLER: FOUND. With her band playing-merry tunes, H.M.s. Dunedin steamed slowly up tlia harbour this" morning, back from her successful mission in Samoa. She berthed at the Sheer legs wharf,after being away nearly ten weeks. Commander Nelson Clover, R.N., of H.M.s. Philomel, welcomed Commodore Geoffrey Blake, C.8., and his officers, and greetings were exchanged on the quarter* deck. Major L. M. Isitt, officer commanding the Hobsonville Air Base, also made an official call, and together , with Flight-Lieutenant S. Wallingford, who flew the Air Force seaplane taken to Samoa on board the cruiser, was seen chatting with the commodore. It was a quiet and unostentatious home-coming. Several women in bright' array waved a welcome to the suntanned tars, and when their husbands and sweethearts were able to leave duty for a minute, they embraced. The "mother of the navy" was also tnere to welcome home her "boys." Heavy Sick List;:; The Dunedin has returned with a sick list of 61. Several of this number are' to be sent to hospital, suffering from septip wounds and mosquito bites. None of the sick is in a serious condition. They contracted the usual tropical complaints because of their vitality being lowered in the trying climate. On the way to Samoa, the ship ran into some bad weather, and, coming home, she struck a cyclonic disturbance off the Tongan Group. Taken all through, however, the weather was good. Many curios have been brought back by the men of the Dunedin. The commodore himself has a vicious-looking knife that will always remind him of the Mau. It is a ceremonial knife, long and ugly, with a nasty hook on the end. Lava lavas, kava bowls, and beads are among the many curios that have been brought back. Anchor of the Adler. ' Most interesting of all-the curios is the anchor of the German warship Adler, ' which was driven up on a reef in Apia harbour in the famous hurricane of 1880. Lives were lost.in that hurricane, and the only ship to escape out of the half-dozen which were anchored in the harbour was the British gunboat Calliope.

Just before the Dunedin sailed away from Apia, several jack-tars ■ were dragging in the harbour for a mark-buoy which had sunk. They could not find it; Native boys dived near the'spot where the buoy had been lost. During the operations, the searchers came across the anchor of the Adler, which had been hidden*™ Apia harbour for over forty years.