A HUNTED SHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1940, Page 8

A HUNTED SHIP.

GREAT WAR DRAMA.

WAS CHASED BY RAIDERS. NOTABLE SAILING RECOUP. Hunted by Germany's Pacific raiders during the Great War, the Niagara had a notable record of service. During those four dangerous years she never missed a trip. Her speed stood to her. and often it was increased beyond her builders' wildest dreame. On one occasion, it is said, the Niagara was spotted by a seaplane from the German raider Wolf, but by clapping on speed she was able to outdistance the enemy. It was the Wolf, incidentally, whieh captured the Union Company's Wairuna and sank her at the Kermadecs in 1917.

In the "anxious ycere of 1914-18, the Niagara—the "lucky Niagara" she was called—maintained her service in a remarkable manner. Few vessels can boast of such fa-ultlese war-time service.

Built on the Clyde by John Brown and Company, the Niagara paid her first visit to Auckland twenty-seven years ago—on May 0, ICIJ. At that time ehe was the biggest steamer of Britain's mercantile fleet to come south of the

Line to Australasian waters. She was in port at the same time as H.M.S. New Zealand, largest warship ever to come to this port up to then. The visit of these two big vessels-created great public interest.

Specially designed for the CanadianAustralian Line at a time when Pacific traffic was increasing by leaps and bounds, the Niagara was a vessel of 13,415 tons. One of the most handsome steamers of her time, ehe became probably the most well-known passenger ship to make- regular,, visits to the port. Her dimensions were as follows:— length, 525 ft; beam, 66ft; depth, 34.5 ft. She was one of the first ships in the world to be fitted with combination engine*. The Niagara had combined reciprocating and turbine engines, with triple screws, which gave her a speed of 17.3 knots. She had two sete of tripleexpansion engines with four cylinders and one power turbine. Her eight boiler* gave a working pressure of 2201b.

Her 27 years of plying the Pacific highways were packed with incident. The dramatic years,of war were not the only, times" of excitement -Sor her. v it was the' Niagara which was blamed in some quartern for the introduction of the influenza epidemic of 1918. She had a number of 'flu patients isolated on her, but was allowed to berth instead of being sent to quarantine, as the late Sir Joseph Ward and the late Mr. W. F. Maasey were aboard, , after their war mission to England. Coincident or not, it is stated that the epidemic broke out at Auckland immediately after the vessel's arrival.

In 1937 the Niagara was Involved in two missions of mercy. On the way north site answered a radio call from the steam yacht Viking and transferred a nurse and a Melbourne eye specialist to attend an American millionaire, Mr. George Baker, who had been taken suddenly ill with peritonitis. On her return passage a few weeks later she was called to pick up the wrecked crew at an island in the Phoenix group. Hero of one war and victim of another, the Niagara has now gone to her final rest.