BIG N.Z. EFFORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 171, 21 July 1943, Page 4

BIG N.Z. EFFORT

j BUILDING OF SHIPS ! i

MINESWEEPER LAUNCHED

| '"It is not too much tc say that the! j effort of New Zealand in shipbuilding contributed to the provision of minesweepers that swept the seas off Sicily and the other vessels that took part in the invasion there—the great- j est amphibian undertaking we have! yet seen." declared Commodore K. j Doweling. D.S.C., R.N., who made his j first nubile address, representing the i Royal New Zealand Navy, at the J launching yesterday of a new j minesweeper. H.M.N.Z.S. Tawhai. j The commodore prefaced that remark with a reference to the great shipbuilding programme of the United Nations and the need for a maximum effort in this direction.! Ships were coining off the slips in Britain at an incredible rate in comparison with pre-war building, he said, but Britain was not unmindful of the efforts that were being made elsewhere. To New Zealand, as to Britain, the sea was life. Every ship built here was a gesture of selfreliance by the Dominion which had a result in relieving pressure on other shipbuilding programmes of the United Nations. In wishing the vessel ""Good Hunt- i ing," Commodore Dowding referred | to _ the sturdiness of the men and the ships of the Royal New Zealand Navy which had been already demonstrated at the Battle of the Plate, in the Solomons and in "a hundred-and-one unheralded actions throughout the j world." Two Lauuchings The references made by the Comi modore. and by the other speakers, —Mr. E, T. Tirikatene, Minister fori the Co-ordination of the Maori War Effort. Mr. J. Frater. deputy-chair-j man of the Auckland Harbour Board. and Mr. J. L. Coakley. deputy-Mayor — to the revival of shipbuilding in the Auckland yards had particular aptitude this morning. The major event was the launching of the Tawhai. but just beforehand another vessel also took the water from an adjoining yard. This was the coastal vessel, Tiroa, an all-wood vessel of 3/0 tons, which had been rebuilt from the keel up by Shipbuilders. Ltd., and converted from steam to Diesel motor. It will be employed by the South Taranaki Shipping" Company between Patea and Wellington. Both vessels took the water perfectly, the Tawhai. a 139 ft. 500-ton vessel of steel and wood construej tion, being sent on her way to the j accompaniment of a Maori haka of 'salutation and injunction, which I sounded oddly in the busy shipyard, where the skeleton of another such 1 vessel lifted above the heads of the assembled throng of people. The present was. however, linked with the past when Mr. Tirikatene. wear- ', ing the mat of his chieftainship, stepped forward to speak as the ' representative of the Government. The Maori neople felt uiey had a I special interest in these occasions, ; he said, as the derc/ndants of great sea rovers and navigators, who had ventured across ;S e seas from far 1 lands to make their home in this • country. It was in the Auckland district where, from earliest times. \ most of the ships of wood construci tion had been built.