SHIP HORORATA AT LYTTELTON

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24869, 8 May 1946, Page 6

SHIP HORORATA AT LYTTELTON

SURVIVAL OF U-BOAT ATTACK

TORPEDOING OFF AZORES RECALLED On her first visit to New Zealand ports since the end of the war, the New Zealand Snipping Company’s refrigerated motor-vessel Hororata berthed at Lyttelton yesterday morning. The ship, which, has been to Auckland and Wellington, will load here until about Saturday, when she will leave for Port Chalmers to take further cargo for Great Britain. Athough not launched until 1942, the Hororata saw plenty of action during the war, and made headline news after a torpedo attack off the Azores early in 1943. For the part they played in getting-the vessel to England after this U-boat attack, five members of the crew were decorated. They were the master (Captain F. S. Hamilton), the chief officer, the third engineer, and two members of the crew. Captain Hamilton is still in command of the ship. The story of how the Hororata survived her torpedoing and reached a British port with a cargo of urgentlyneeded butter and meat is a compelling one. The ship left Australia early in 4943 and had an uneventful voyage until she was torpedoed in daylight when 200 miles off Flores, in the Azores. A hole 40 feet in diameter was blown in her port side, and as she listed heavily, boxes of butter and sides of beef were washed from the hold into the sea. Captain Hamilton headed his ship for Flores, where she arrived in a sinking condition 16 hours efter the torpedoing. Repairs could not be made in Flores, and Captain Hamilton decided to make for Horta. 135 miles away.

As he suspected that enemy agents in Flores would tell submarines his vessel’s movements, the voyage was made at night. So dangerous was the trip considered that only essential members of the crew were carried the others being left in Flores. The hole in the side of the ship was plugged temporarily with hatch covers, derricks, and tarpaulins. The Hororata reached Horta safely, only to find that the port was without facilities to repair the damage. Captain Hamilton sent the crew into the hills to cut logs, which, with old railway lines. were bolted across the hole in the vessel. As bolts could not, be obtained in Horta, the ship’s engineers made their own from iron rods. After three month?, the patch was complete, rnd more than 300 tons of cement were poured in to ensure strength and to make the patch watertight. The Hororata completed her voyage and arrived safely at a British Port with her cargo almost intact. The ship, which has a gross tonnage of 13.945, was built at John Brown’s shipyards at Clydebank. She is 532 feet long, and carries modern refrigerating machinery.