V.C. MEDAL FOR NEW N.Z. SHIP
(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, October 7. When the new cargo ship Otaki arrives in New Zealand, probably about June next year, she will have either in the officers’ smoking room or the officers’ lounge the Victoria Cross won by Captain A. Bissett Smith during world War I, and also his portrait in oils.
The Otaki will be launched at the Clydebank yard of John Brown and Company on October 24 by Mrs H. S. Whitehead, wife of the chairman of directors of the New Zealand Shipping Company. The vessel will be the fourth ship to be named Otaki by the company. It was the second Otaki which was sunk by the German armed raider Moewe in March, 1917, and Captain Smith, who went down with his ship, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. After the death of Captain Smith’s widow last year, the medal was bought at auction for the company by Mr C. B. Sharpe. Added sentimental value attaches to it. for it is one of only two V.C.’s ever awarded in the Merchant Navy. Since Mr Sharpe bought it. the medal has been in the keep* ing of Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, where Captain Smith was educated.
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Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 9
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205V.C. MEDAL FOR NEW N.Z. SHIP Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 9
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