CROWDS VISIT WARSHIPS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27501, 8 November 1954, Page 10

CROWDS VISIT WARSHIPS

BLACK PRINCE AND HAWEA HEAVY TRAFFIC TO LYTTELTON Big crowds travelled to Lyttelton on Saturday and yesterday to inspect the cruiser Black Prines and the frigate Hawea. , . From 1.30 p.m. on Saturday both the Black Prince and the Hawea were thronged with visitors. Large numbers travelled to Lyttelton by train and many by cars. At times the two ships became crowded, and those on the wharf had to be stopped from boarding the vessels until others came ashore. Yesterday, the crowd numbered several thousands. Extra trains were run in the afternoon, and cars were parked in the railway yard and far up into the town. The Hawea had sailed in the morn ng, but the Black Prince remained in port. Trains arriving from Christchurch at half-hourly intervals each brought about 600 passengers. Between 1000 and 1200 cars travelled to Lyttelton. All the afternoon there was a queue extending up to 200 yards from the gangway of the Black Prince, and an official estimate supplied by the naval authorities was thrt about 4500 persons visited the ship. Delighted Children “Put her up a bit, Liz.” High up in the Black Prince, Eunice, a 10-year-old girl worked enthusiastically at the training controls of an antiaircraft gun. Her friend, in the other seat, operated the elevator control. Couched in those terms the order would probably have caused the hackles to rise on any gunnery officer, but Liz understood, and in a moment the slender barrel was pointing skyward. So delighted were the girls with the ease of the operation that they repeated it several times until they were ousted from their positions by other waiting youngsters. Nearby other children, under the watchful eye of a bluejacket, were operating quadruple-mounted twopounder pompoms. They swung the barrels up, and, in imagination, blasted enemy aircraft from the sky. The rapid circular motion of the pompom platform delighted the children and even when one of them, turning a forbidden control, drenched all with a jet of water, they still enjoyed it.

Everything that could be shown to the public was on display, with sailors stationed to explain the workings of the various gadgets. Divingsuits, a 21-inch torpedo and depth-charges in the firing position were only some of the items shown. From the bridge the lowest part of the vessel, the public, small boys and girls predominating, explored the Black Prince. Galleys and gun-turrets were- inspected and everything mechanical to which there was access, was tried out.

Handling the huge crowd, shepherding them around and off the ship, was probably all in a day’s work to the officers and men on duty, but it must have been with relief that they saw, at 5 p.m. yesterday, the red and yellow O” flag, flown when a warship is open to visitors, hauled down.