GOOD SAILORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 50, 28 February 1940, Page 5

GOOD SAILORS.

NEW ZEALAND BOYS.

BRITISH OFFICER'S EULOGY.

«SEA Zβ IN THEIR BLOOD."

Some recollections of a British naval officer who spent four years training New Zealand naval recruits form the subject of an interesting article in the English publication, "London Calling." He writes as follows: —

The captain of the Graf Spee must have been puzzled by one of the battle ensigns that fluttered at the main of the Achilles as the little cruiser cam* closing m on him; a blue ensign with the four stars of the Southern Cross in the fly. It was the flag of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy. With her opening salvo the Achilles was making history: for the first time, men born, recruited and trained in New Zealand had the chance of proving themeelves in battle at sea. How surely they did it is now known to the world.

The New Zealand Division was started in 1920. It consists now of two cruisers and a training ship. Before the last war New Zealand presented a battle cruiser to Britain—the New Zealand. She visited the Dominion under the command of Captain Halsey. A Maori chief presented him with a mat and a greenstone tiki, and said if be wore them in action hie ship would never come to any harm.

Soon afterwards the war broke out and the New Zealand was in action, and Captain Halsey solemnly wore that mat and carried the tiki—much to the delight of his ship's company. The battle cruiser came through the war unscathed and now that mat and tiki are in New Zealand on show at the Centennial Exhibition. • Even so, their protecting influence seems to have been looking after the Achilles.

The New Zealand paid another, visit to the Dominion after the war with Admiral of the Fleet Lord Jellicoe, and liia recommendations resulted in the

start of the New Zealand Division. The Royal Navy was to lend the ships and the officers, while the Dominion was to provide for their upkeep and eventually for manning them.

"Material for Hie Asking." There was never any difficulty about getting recruits: the sea is in the blood of those islanders —in fact at no place in the Dominion are you ever more than .80 miles from it. As Lord Jellicoe paid hie first visit he was struck by the hundreds of white sails that dotted every .harbour of the Dominion on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

■ From the Bluff, to North Cape it was the same—half the population eeemed to spend their leisure on the water. He realised that there was material hjere for the asking. How right he was he saw for himself when he came out as Governor-General,' when the training of this young navy was in full swing.

The boys who joined had to pass the same searching teste to enter that the Iboys of the Royal Navy have to undergo. They are trained in the Philomel—an old cruiser at Auckland. But instead of learning the first principles of seamanship on some muddy estuary they learn them en the sparkling waters of the Waitemata with its have and green hills and the gaunt shape of old' Rangitoto—an extinct volcano—in the distance.

They get .their first experience of the wonders of the sea, not in some misty northern port but. on cruises to Australia or among the coral and palms of the South Sea Islands. After a time they come home for.courses in gunnery or torpedo in the great naval schools aver here and then join the Fleet for a bit. When I was in the Xeleon we had a "batch of them who joined us for a cruiee—and they were as smart as any in the Fleet flagship. They weren't strangers from. the Antipodes—they were the same as us—though they were, more interested in Rugger than Soccer.

The New Zealand boy makes a good sailor. He'e independent and cap think for himeelf— he'& got go and initiative— but at the same, time he takes to the naval discipline as if -dee j> down in him somewhere he felt that it was nothing new.

Look of Surprised Wonder. When I was in the Philomel we had one old chief petty officer instructor of the seal old eehool. He had. a face of,

mahogany, a voice like a bull, and hands like hams. When he arrived he was fed up at being eent out to train same new-fangied navy. He didn't think much of the new entries at Home —he was miserable at the thought of what he"d have to handle out there.

As time went by the rather contemptuous look on his face turned to one of surprised wonder. He confessed one day, rather grudgingly, that he'd never had such a crowd of youngsters—l used to find him spinning them yarns in the dog watches; yarns of a Navy under sail—very few of them true, I've no doubt —but that old veteran and those youngetere eeemed to understand each other.

When he left to go Home and take his pension I" saw a sight I'd never expected to see in thie world. As he stepped over the gangway for the last time and the trainees cheered him, a tear trickled down that weather-beaten cheek. Hβ went straight back to Xew Zealand after he had retired, and he's buried not far from the Philomel.