ONLY A LOG!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 263, 7 November 1939, Page 6

ONLY A LOG!

VESSEL'S "ESCAPE."

BUMP FELT m FO'C'SLE.

AtrCKIiAfNI>ER»S CONVOY TRIP.

It was ipitcih dark and the convoy ■moved over a smooth sea. Suddenly there was a bump. The boys in the foe Vie scampered for safety . . . but ■it was only a log.

This is one sidelight in the description of a convoy, contained in it letter to relatives in Auckland from Mr. Kayanond I'eguero, of Manurewa. An engineer, Mr. I'eguero is a member of the crew of a British merchant man which left Gibraltar shortly after the outbreak of \va.f a» .part of what is believed 'to be the first convoy formed in the war. Mr. Peguero ■ served his apprenticeship in an Auckland engineering fiimi and has been at sea since Ma rah. "We left Xew York for Port Said, but were destined never to arrive there, for we were later informed that we were under Admiralty command and ordered to proceed to (J-ibralt-ar witih all lights out,' says Mr. Peguero. "lit came as a surprise to all on board; wo never imagined tho war was so near. Gibraltar was packed with J!ritu-h ships waiting for order.-. Whistle Scattered Them. '•After a, few days al anchor, eight ships formed a convoy. Firi-t niirht out t.hc convoy had with it two cruk-eri- and six destroyers guarding it out of the straight. The following morning the destroyers Joft. Some of tihe older men said it was unheard of in the last war to have two cruisers to a convoy. Tn faoi. if you had one, they said, you 'were lucky." It doesn't take much to excite a crowd, as Mr. Peguero says in describing the floating log incident, which, ho adds, was made even worse when a whistle was blown and the ships scattered in all directions.

"On another occasion it was myself who caused the commotion," continues Mr. Peguero. "[ let the steam in the 'boilers rise too high and a large volume of steam at high pressure escaped. The noiso was almost deafening. Some who had never heard the noise be.fore said it. sounded like a torpedo going through the water. They had never heard a torpedo, but it was enough to make me not too popular for quite a while."