NATAL DIVISION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 15

NATAL DIVISION

WARSHIPS' MOVEMENTS

By the end of this month the Easter period of refitting, docking, and leavogiving will bo over, and tho ships of tho Now Zealand Division of tho Eoyal Navy will disperse early in June for their winter work. • . .. Tho flagship Dunedin will carry out gunnery and torpedo exercises with aircraft co-operation in tho Hauraki Gulf from tho first week in June until about 20th June. She will be assisted for ono week by the sloop Laburnum. ' After a few days in Auckland to replenish fuel and stores the flagship is then expected to sail for Nukualofa, where' Commodore Blake will call upon tho Queen of Tonga. Suva and Noumea will be visit-' ed, the call at Noumea (New Caledonia) being in the nature of a return compliment to the French for the visit of the cruiser Tourville to New Zealand last year. The flagship will then proceed to Vila, in the New Hebrides, in order that the Commodore may meet the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, who will then be at Vila in the Veronica. The Dunedin is then to return to Auckland at the beginning of August for fuel and supplies before visiting Wellington and the South Island. She is due to arrive at Lyttelton about 12th August. The Veronica, under the command of Commander Bobertson, will sail early in Juno for Suva and embark the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific (the Governor of Fiji) and take him for a cruise round all the islands under his jurisdiction in tho Gilbert, Bllice, Solomon, and New Hebrides groups. This cruise will last until August, when the Veronica will return to Suva. Her subsequent movements are not yet decided. , The Laburnum, under Commander _C. E. Hotharn, is to 'carry out a cruise among the Easter groups until August, when she will.embark the Administrator of Western Samoa for a short visit to the Tokelau Islands. -' At the end of September the Laburnum will embark an astronomical party at Suva and land them at the island of Niuafou in order to take observations of the eclipse of the sun in October. Niuafou is the only land where the eclipse is total. Tho sloop will then return to Auckland about the middle of October. The Dioruede is expected to arrive back from England about tho middle of December after being completely overhauled and refitted. She- will then be reeommissioned with an entirely new ship's company. '..■'. \