CARE OF CARGO

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 70, 20 September 1943, Page 4

CARE OF CARGO

N.Z. PORT DETACHMENT

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) CAIRO, September 17.

All cargo and mail arriving in the Middle East for New Zealand units passes through the hands of a special all-New Zealand Port Detachment, whose task is to expedite delivery. Since its formation in August, 1941, this small detail has maintained a record of the highest efficiency. Early in 1941, when a- great volume of supplies was pouring into the Middle East through the relatively small number of ports then available, delays in delivery of items of general cargo were unavoidable.

A unit was accordingly formed of oxxje men experienced in shipping matters. As a result, losses in cargoes have fallen from 15 per cent, to under 1 per cent, of the totals shipped. This is well under the normal peacetime rate of 2 to 3 per cent. The detachment, which is self-contained, examines all manifestos, locates and supervises the unloading of all cargo consigned to New Zealand units, and dispatches it to the final address. It also guards all cargoes for which it is responsible, deals with personnel and mail arriving and departing from the Middle East, and locates shipments over-carried to other ports. The detachment operates from an office in the Suez area, with living quarters'in a self-contained camp not far away. When the Division moved west after Field-Marshal Rommel, details went to Benghazi and later to Tripoli. The work there, in spite of enemy action, was maintained to standard. One of the jobs much appreciated by the men of the Division was the handling of the issue of patriotic parcels and . tobacco at- Tripoli. Attached personnel include postal people, guard details, and A.S.C. drivers. ?.'

The- boarding launch used by the New Zealand detachment was once well known in Auckland as the Olive Jean, the North Shore ferry and harbour excursion boat, and has been carrying out her present duties for 18 months. Her new name, appropriately, is New Zealand. She flies the Dominion ensign, and has an all-New Zealand crew. New Zealand II was an "enemy alien," salvaged by a second detachment from the beach at Tripoli. After, extensive repairs, she • was equipped with a truck engine and proved of great service in working the battered port. The work of the detachment is sometimes most complex, such as finding perhaps one case among 10,000. tons of cargo. Occasionally small consignments are over-carried and finally unloaded at remote ports, where they would be.lost but for the efforts of the organisation. Such cases have taken our shipping men as far afield as Haifa.