ON & OFF THE KAIPARA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 106, 31 October 1914, Page 3

ON & OFF THE KAIPARA

AN OFFICER'S LETTER END OF THE KAISER WILHELM. Some interesting details of the capture and sinking of the steamer Kaipara by the German merchant cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and tho subsequent fate of the big liner at the hands of the Highflyer, are given in a letter received by Mrs. H. 0. Wilson, of Oriental Bay, from her son, who was an engineer on the Kaipara. Mr. Wilson describes the first appearance of the big German ship, which fired a gun at the Kaipara at 7 a.m. on 16th August. He was ordered to the engineroom, and saw the Kaiser Wilhelm astern. He was the last to leave the engine-room, the others being relieved to get ready for departure, and he pumped water into the boilers to prevent an explosion, and got his own belongings together from the engine-room. When he came on deck he found a scene of great excitement. " There was a German boat crew aboard, and everyone was huriying and scurrying. I packed what I could and left the rest, as everyone else did. Our gear was then lowered into our boats and we pulled to the German. The first thing they did when they came, aboard was to smash up fhe wireless instrument and throw it over the side. Our operator could .not get any messages through, owing to the Germans blocking him, theirs being a more powerful machine. "We were all aboard finally about 10 30 a.m.," 'the letter goes on, "and found that they had already sunk another ship, the Grimsby trawler away up near Iceland. She happened to be right in their way, so they sank the trawler so that she could not give away their whereabouts. There were fourteen men aboard her. The cruiser had cleared from Hamburg in a great hurry just about the time the war started, round the north of Scotland, 'and up by Iceland. The night before the German saw us she held up the Galician, a Union-Castle boat, but after destroying her wireless let her go, as she had a, large number of women and children aboard. There were an officer and private of our Army among the passengers, and they Were taken prisoners. -"The cruiser had several 4-inch guns aboard, and they proceeded to sink the old Kaipara. And a precious long time they took 'over it, too. She didn't go down till about noon, and they fired about 60 shots a-t her." Mr Wilson describes next the overhauling the sa-me afternoon of a big Royal Mail steamer, which was allowed to go on with her wireless instruments wrecked, as she had a large complement of passengers. Later in the day an Elder Dempster cargo steamer was stopped, her crew of 35, mostly negroes, was taken off, and she was sunk The writer states that four colliers arrived at Rio del Oro to supply the Kaiser Wilhelm, which at full speed burned about 500 tons of coal a day, and needed all she could get, in view of the possibility that all ports would be closed to her. It was after 6he had been coaling for some time that the Highflyer arrived. He describes the shelling of the big liner — which has already been told of in several .reports — and the departure of the collier Arucas with the captured crews and that of the German liner. The Arucas, he says, wa-s about the size of the Canopus, the well-known Westport Coal Company's collier, and she had little enough accommodation for 250 men, and was not well provided with either food or water. Ultimately, Mr. Wilson reached England in the Inanga, which was lying in Las Palmas, and which took /the passengers from the Arucas and provided them with second-class berths and good fare. ,