N.Z. warships of the past

Press, 26 May 1984, Page 20

N.Z. warships of the past

Australian and New Zealand Warships, 1914-1945. By Ross Gillett. Doubleday, 1984. 360 pp. Index and appendices. $39.95. (Reviewed by Ted Glasgow) Every vessel, from battle-cruiser to power dinghy, that served in the Australian or New Zealand Navy between 1914 and 1945 is listed in this massive volume of information which was gathered and presented by an enthusiastic young Australian naval historian. Also included are the ships that were under the control of the Australian Army, mostly small craft, and the lighters, tenders and supply ships of the Royal Australian Navy. The numbers are surprising: 2700 under army control at the peak period and more than 300 under air force control. One of the appendices is devoted to what is termed shipboard aviation and lists and describes the aircraft carried by warships for spotting and reconnaissance. All this information has been sorted and classified and presented in three sections: Australia, New Zealand, and the appendices, of which there are eight. Brief chronologies of the important events in the period under review appear before each of the main sections, for, as the author says, the story of the ships is inseparable from that of the navies. The book is not a history of the two navies. It is about their ships; not one naval name appears in the text. The vital statistics of the ships are presented in specification tables, which give displacement, dimensions, machinery, speed, range, manning, and armament — in short, everything anyone could want to know about a warship. The format of the tables distinguishes between built-for-the-purpose vessels and purchased vessels, and requisitioned ships required for

war duties. In addition to the statistics the tables give brief life histories. Thus one learns that the requisitioned minesweeper Rata, of 974 tons, was built in 1929, was taken by the Navy in 1940, paid off in October, 1943, and returned to her owners in 1944. The book does not say so, but the Rata was one of several of the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company’s fleet to serve as minesweepers. In all, 14 ships were requisitioned for service as minesweepers in the Royal New Zealand Navy. Since the end of the Second World War small coasters have disappeared from the New Zealand scene, wiped out by the Cook Strait freight ferries. If there should be another war one wonders where the Navy could lay hands on 14 ships suitable for conversion to minesweeping. In the New Zealand section under the heading of requisitioned support ships, miscellaneous, appears the name Wairangi, but nothing about her. A similar fate has befallen the Arataka and Kaianui. It seems that even Ross Gillett’s diligence has failed. It is a fair assumption that the Wairangi is the launch formerly owned by W. R. Carey, requisitioned by the Navy and used as the Lyttelton examination vessel, and now the Lyttelton Harbour Board’s pilot launch. So far this review has been describing a big book packed full of information and statistics about naval vessels and their armament and so on, and it might sound a very dull book, except to an esoteric few. So it would be without the photographs. They are all in black and white, but truly magnificent and very informative. What is more, there are a great many of them. Almost every page has its quota of illustrations, and many of them are full page. The reproduction is

uniformly good. The sight of multifunnelled warships of a past era and the primitive aircraft then in use will surely give a thrill and a wave of nostalgia to our older generations. H.M.N.Z.S. Killegray, shown in a photograph on this page, was an Isles Class minesweeping trawler. Four of these ships served in the New Zealand Navy from 1942 until 1946. They were of 560 tons, 164 feet over all, with a cruising speed of 12 knots. The Sopwith Camel aircraft (also pictured) were flown from H.M.A.S. Australia and Sydney in the final stages of the First World War. This is only one of many splendid pictures of the aircraft of those times. Looking at them now, one feels that it would take a man of courage to fly them, even if there was no enemy about trying to shoot them down. As with the text, so with the photographs: they cover everything from the great battle-cruiser to the humblest oil hulk. The Wakakura, well known in most New Zealand ports, is photographed alongside a wharf; H.M.N.Z.S. Phyllis, familiar to many as one of New Zealand’s few steam trawlers in the 1920 s and 30s, is shown at sea with an impressive plume of smoke streaming from her funnel and the White Ensign at her yard arm. It is irritating and surprising to find in a book of the calibre of this one that proclamation has been mis-spelt, to learn that the remains of the Amokura are visible “in Pelorus Sound, near Picton,” and that there are mistakes in the table of contents. This is not a book that one reads from cover to cover, but it will make a splendid reference book. Naval historians will greet it with cries of joy; anyone with but a spark of interest in the sea, ships, and navies will find hours of fascinating browsing.