MARAMA SOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 144, 19 June 1937, Page 11

MARAMA SOLD

/ CHINESE BUYER

WAR SERVICE RECALLED

CYLINDER MYSTERY

The graceful Marama, for many years, a familiar ship in ports on the "Sew Zealand coast and in Australia, is ■xoon to leave Wellington for the last time. The Union Steam Ship Company announced today that as it has been decided to replace the Marama with the Maunganui in the Wellington-South Island-Melbourne service next season, negotiations were opened up for the disposal of *he Marama, and a sale has now been finalised, the buyers being the Linghua Dock and Engineering Works, Ltd., China. The war-time associations of the Marama have been forgotten by many. She was the first hospital ship to pass through the Panama Canal. During the hazardous days when the ship was dressed in white, with a larg^ red cross painted on each side, she carried many thousands of patients, enemy and friend. - Five times the Marama re-turned-to New.Zealand with Dominion soldiers who had been wounded at the front. It was on December 1, 1915, that the Marama arrived at Wellington to take 'on board her staff of doctors and nurses and load a large quantity of medical : stores and comforts. Four days later she steamed out of Port Nicholson. In the middle of the following year the ship was engaged in the cross-Channel service, running for the most part between Southampton and Le Havre, or Boulogne. At that, time the British offensive on the. Somme was going at full blast, and a large proportion of the wounded carried by the ship were casualties from the Somme front. Every patient received the same treatment, whether British or German.. On .one trip the Marama carriedno'f ewer, than .413 wounded Germans who had been made prisoners. Early'in 1917 the ship, was several times storm-tossed by the heavy gales which swept the English Channel. ■ -On January 13 she left Southampton for New Zealand with 560 patients, most of whom were coif cases. Two days out from Southampton she picked up 13 : survivors from the British tramp Broadwood, which had been sunk by gunfire "rom a German U-boat. On, the. same trip she passed a' Spanish steamer which was being attacked by an enemy submarine. As a hospital ship the Marama covered a quarter of a million nautical miles, and she consumed 70,000 tons of coal. Her average speed when rushing homeward with casualties , was 311.64 miles a day, or 12.98 knots. OPERATIONS ON BOARD. Despite the fact that the'vessel carried more than 20,000 patients, the percentage of deaths was surprisingly small, the actual figure being only 13, including two drowned. Some complicated operations were performed on board the ship under very adverse circumstances. One of these included a ship's fireman, who had his tongue removed and tubes inserted in his windpipe and gullet in order that he might breathe and take food. For over a week he was kept in this critical condition,, but the operation was successful. At Alexandria he missed his passage, and his subsequent fate was never known... _. .., Although the Marama "was never once molested by an enemy submarine, the danger from mines was ever present, and her running was very much more hazardous than it has ever been since July, 1919, when her war service came to an end. THE MYSTERY CYLINDER. No chronicle of the Marama's career would be complete without reference to the famous "Marama's . Cylinder," which became an object of mystery to people on both sides of the Tasman. This innocent-looking gas cylinder first attracted the attention of the Customs officials as it lay in the .hold of the Marama at. Wellington on November 10, 1933. Before the steamer left for Sydney that day an unsuccessful search for silver coin was made by the Customs officials, bui the cylinder apparently aroused their suspicions, for just as the ship was about to sail the hatch coverings were' removed, derricks were unslung,' and everything was made ready for 'the unloading of the mysterious metal bottle. Representations by the Union Company, however, resulted in the parties, agreeing to suspend operations, and the Marama left forty minutes late. When the ship reached Sydney the cylinder was found near the bottom of the hold, sealed by Customs, and placed'in-the strong-room for shipment, back to Auckland. It 'was afterwards dispatched to AVellington. Shaped like a huge bottle, the cylinder was made of cast-iron and was about 3ft 6in long. When the. cylinder was eventually opened it was found to be empty, but there was more than a suspicion that it had been sent across the Tashian several times previously filled with silver coin, which it could hold to the value of about £2000. The exporters, of course, would make a 25 per cent, profit because of the newlyinstituted exchange rate.

The Marama was built at Greenock in 1907, and is a vessel of 6497 tons gross. The Makurav another former Union Company liner, was sold to Chinese buyers last year.