ON ACTIVE SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 66, 15 September 1941, Page 6

ON ACTIVE SERVICE

LEANDER'S RECORD

MANY TIMES IN ACTION

CONVOY AND PATROL

Further interesting details of the activity of H.M.S. Leander, which left New Zealand in the early part of last year for foreign service, are given ,in an official account which has just been released for publication. This, continues the narrative which recorded the Leander's doings dp to the end of last February. ' ' '

For the first few months of the war the Leander's service was performed in New Zealand waters, giving protection to the New Zealand coast and to shipping between there and Australian routes. Then followed a long, fast voyage to the Mediterranean, during which the cruiser covered about 10,600 mi3#s in 24 days in May of last year. The ship's stay in the Mediterranean was only a short; one, and early in June she passed through the-Suez Canal to begin a long period of convoy work in the Red Sea. This period, according to the official account, was throughout the Red Sea summer and was an uncomfortable one, but interest was sustained by the ever-present possibility of attack by the Italian surface, submarine, and air forces from enemy bases on the flank of the convoy route.

Only once, however, did the Leander have the opportunity of engaging enemy surface craft. This, curiously enough, happened in the early morning of Trafalgar Day, when two enemy destroyers delivered a long-range attack on the convoy. As a result- of the action-one of the destroyers-, was sunk by H.M.S. Kimberley. High-level bombing attacks by enemy aircraft were more common, but. they were invariably ineffective. •

At the end of November the Leander had a spell from active service and was r ordered to Bombay for docking and 'refit. The men had a very pleasant time while there, and returned to work at the end of December much refreshed.

IN THE RED SEA.

After a further short spell of convoy work in the Red Sea the Leander was transferred to the Indian Ocean for the purpose of protecting shipping from the attentions of enemy surface raiders. For the most par ; t service in the Indian Ocean consisted of steaming many thousands of miles in considerable heat, but the ship had, the good fortune, to experience two events' which broke the monotony of this long patrol. On February 27 she met and sank the small Italian raider, Ramb I, and early in March, when H.M.A.S,. Canberra sank the German supply ship Coburg and the captured Norwegian tanker Ketty Brovig, the Leander was shortly afterwards on the scene, and picked up a number of German prisoners and some Norwegian survivors. . : "Shortly after Easter our employment was varied by having the honour o" hoisting the flag of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, and conveying him at high speed from Colombo to the Shatt-el-Arab, in the Persian, Gulf, in connection with the coup d'etat of Rashid Ali and the subsequent occupation of the. country by British troops," continues the official narrative. "Early in June, as a result, of the severe losses sustained by the Mediterranean Fleet in the evacuations from Greece and Crete, the Leander, was transferred'to the Mediterranean, and once more found herself in Alexandria. The return to.this port made possible many pleasant reunions between ourselves and members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East. . ' "Activity by the Italian Navy, still smarting from tke defeat at Cape Matapan, was at a low ebb, and we did not have the good fortune to go into action against them though bombing and minelaying raids at Alexandria and Haifa were frequent. , ACTION OFF SYRIA. "We were fortunate in seeing action on the Syrian coast in support of the Australian forces advancing along the coast road to Beirut. The Australians did a wonderful job against particularly strong defencesvheld with determination. • On two occasions we intervened actively by bombarding enemy strong points at the Damour River, but our principal duties were to ensure that the destroyers, which were work-j ing close inshore, were not molested by the French destroyer forces from Beirut, and' to assist our own Air Force in protecting them against enemy j air interference. The former threat did not materialise, but at times Italian and Vichy French bombing attacks were delivered. These, though mild in comparison with those which our Fleet mates had encountered, from the German stuka dive : bomber-s, kept us well occupied. "On another occasion we were present when a British force fought a brief and inconclusive night action against two French- destroyers supported from coastal defence artillery near Beirut, from which our force j withdrew without damage." TRANSPORT OF SOLDIERS. Not long after the Syrian campaign the Leander was employed in transporting soldiers and airmen from "somewhere to somewhere else in the Middle East." This task required careful organisation if some hundreds of men with their kit and stores were to be embarked and transported in. reasonable comfort and then disembarked in an orderly manner, probably by night, at their destination. ' "Everything went without a hitch," comments the official account, "and we h>ave reason to believe that our efforts on 'behalf: of our guests were duly appreciated." At the end of- July the situation in the Mediterranean permitted the withdrawal of the Leander, and, with an appreciative signal from the Com-mander-in-Chief for her services while under his command, the ship left for duty elsewhere. During the whole of her active service the Leander has lost only two members of her complement. These were two members of the stokehold crew who .were killed on shore during an air raid on Alexandria. The health of the ship's company has remained very good under trying climatic conditions, the most common of the minor sicknesses among the complement being due to the heat. There have, however, been no cases of sunstroke.