AN HISTORIC VESSEL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 142, 17 June 1924, Page 8

AN HISTORIC VESSEL

FORMER RAIDER IN PORT.

Probably the most interesting arrival in Wellington for some months past, the French steamer Antinous, drew alongside the Queen's Wharf this morning from Dunkirk, via way ports. Her interest lies in the fact that though she now is engaged in peaceful trading between France and New Zealand, her mission in wartime was to harry vessels leaving this country for the scene of hostilities on the other sido of the world. Not only did she sink many vessels by gunfire and internal explosion, but the mines she laid in the Pacific, and Australasian Waters wrought havoc far and wide, and her name came to bo feared throughout this portion of the southern hemisphere. For the Antinous was formerly the Wolf., which one day was reported to,/be within sight of Wellington. Indeed, it was said at one time when the Port Kembla was mined off Farewell Spit in 1916 that the crew of the stricken vessel distinctly heard the engines of the raider pulsing as she passed half a mile from the lowered lifeboats. On her last trip to Wellington information was discovered which made it quite certain that the change of names had taken place and that the Antinous was really the Wolf under new colours. Ijut structural alterations by the Germans concealed the places where the' four 4-inch guns and two torpedo tubes were situated, and when the vessol was handed 'over to France under tho reparations system there was no trace or cine- to her former identity. Only in tin* fact of an autographed log hook of the raider's adventures being "found on hoard was the whole interesting story revealed. Sight-seers in plenty looked over the vessel to-day, and it is anticipated (hat many more will seize Hi,; opportunity of seeing the ship to which so nnirh wartime history attaches.