TO BE BROKEN UP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 138, 14 June 1939, Page 7

TO BE BROKEN UP

OLD FRENCH WARSHIP

TIMBERS STILL SOUND

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, June 13

Another of the old ships lying in Auckland's "Rotten Row," a former French man-of-war. Eure, has been sold to the ship-breakers and is to be beached at Shoal Bay for dismantling. While this is being done the men engaged on the task will live on board the Taniwha. which was recently sold by the Northern Steam Ship Company to the same firm for breaking up. When the Eure's teak and oak timbers and metal work have been recovered, the Taniwha will be beached for similar treatment. - Little is known of the Eure's service in the French Navy. Her last station, however, was Noumea. New Caledonia, where she was probably sent on patrol among French possessions, the inhabitants of which were not so friendly to white "people in those days as they are now. That she has seen battle is evidenced by the fact j that when she came to Auckland her sides bore signs of shot marks. She was bought by the Northern Steam Ship Company for use as,a hulk a few years before the war. The French Government sent her to Sydney, and from there she was towed across the Tasman in 1912 by the Joan Craig. Since then she has spent her days as a'hulk, though oblong ports for. her guns in the remnants of her poop and forecastle indicate her former status. Though the Eure has outlasted her usefulness as a hulk, her timbers are still remarkably sound, and it is considered on the waterfront, that she has , been a particularly well-found ship. , All her timbers are teak and oak. ■