KOREAN NAVAL WAR

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27064, 12 June 1953, Page 10

KOREAN NAVAL WAR

HAWEA HEAVILY SHELLED (New Zealand Press Association} WELLINGTON, June 11. The talks at Panmunjon had not meant any decrease in naval activity in Korea, said the Navy Department today, nor in the Communist counter-measures. Every day ships of the United Nations had engaged shore positions and they had found during the last few months that the number of 76mm and 105 mm batteries along the coast had been greatly increased. The New Zealand frigate, H.M.N.Z.S. Hawea, found this at first hand. During a recent patrol she was caught close inshore by two 76mm batteries, each of four guns, and came under heavy fire. During the next 20 minutes more than 40 shells fell near the frigate. “With shells passing over the ship only feet away we certainly didn’t think the war was nearly over,” commented her captain (Commander G. R. Davis-Goff, D.S.O. and bar, R.N.Z.N.) after the action. “Since the truce talks began the coast has been very active, and the last two months have been very strenuous indeed,”

Having operated through the bitter cold of the Korean winter, the Hawea is now sailing in the rain and intermittent fogs of the spring. Soon she will leave the war zone for her return to New Zealand.