NAVAL CRUISES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 10

NAVAL CRUISES

HEAVY PROGRAMME

VISIT TO AUSTRALIA

The annual summer cruises of the 1 warships of the New Zealand Division ;of the Royal Navy are now well under way. H.M.S. Achilles left Auckland today for Lyttelton, so that now the only sea-going ships at the Devonport Naval Base are the minesweeper Wakakura, which ! has been taking detachments of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for training cruises, arid the Imperial escort vessel Leith, which will remain in port until November 29, when she will make a short cruise to the Hauraki Gulf and Tauranga. The other escort vessel, H.M.S. Wellington, left last week for southern ports,\and the second cruiser, H.M.S. Leander, is at present making her first cruise to the south since her arrival in New Zealand. Another unit of the division, the ketch VikingA was commissioned yesterday frojn H.M.S. Philomel by Lieutenant-Commander E. W. Monckton and sailed with a small detachment of seaman boys in training on a cruise of two or three days to the gulf, states today's issue of the "New Zealand Herald." The other ship of the division, the Philomel, will go into Calliope Dock about November 29 for a four or, five days' overhaul. This will be the first time in four years that she has been docked.

The two' cruisers, H.M.S. Achilles and H.M.S. Leander, have an exceptionally busy programme arranged for them this summer and in the autumn. When they have completed their visits to southern ports they will return to Auckland for a short period before going to the Hauraki Gulf with the two escort vessels for combined exercises. On January 20 they will, leave on their first cruise to Australia, the Achilles going direct to Sydney and the Leander to Melbourne. *

From there they will go to Jervis Bay to visit the ships of the Royal Australian Navy, and after completing a short visit to other Australian ports they will make independent cruises to the South Island, joining company again at Wellington in April and spending, some days together in the Hauraki Gulf for exercises before returning to Auckland on April 28. Their annual Winter visits to the South Pacific Islands will probably begin fairly soon afterwards.

In addition to giving Captain I. G. Glennie, of the Achilles, and Captain J. W. Rivett-Carnac, of the Leander, together with their officers and men, a full opportunity of studying the New Zealand coastline and ports, the summer cruises to the s6uth are also regarded as valuable because of the associations formed ' between the ships of the division and the civic authorities and people of the southern ports.