SPECTACULAR END

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 134, 4 December 1944, Page 6

SPECTACULAR END

STEAMER FLORA BLOWN UP O.C. AUCKLAND, This Day.

The old steamer Flora, which was well known on the New Zealand coast for many years when in the service of the Union Steam Ship Co., Ltd., came to a spectacular end on Friday afternoon. With a cargo of over 500 tons of' defective ammunition and explosives, she was towed about 100 miles out to sea and blown up. She left Auckland on Thursday evening towed by three boats, and at 12.30 on Friday reached the spot selected for the explosion, out of the usual track' of shipping, east of the Poor Knights. " The Flora's last cargo consisted of rejected shells, tracer and anti-aircraft and other varieties of ammunition, and several kinds of high explosives, including a large quantity of T.N.T. It was of United States ownership and came from stores where it had been tested-and found wanting for military purposes. Some of it was in the Flora's holds and the remainder was piled on her decks.

One of the explosive charges used for the demolition weighed 4cwt and the other 3cwt. Two fuses, each 180 ft long, were placed, and, after the two smaller launches had been given time to jjet well away, were lighted: The other launch; the Coralie, then made full speed away. The fuses burned for about an hour and a half and at 2.20 p.m., when the

last launch was about eight miles away, a tremendous explosion occurred. There was a huge flash and a great column of smoke shot up into the sky, spreading out at the top to the shape of a giant parachute. "Then stuff started dropping into the sea only a mile or two away from the Coralie," said Captain George, the commander. "Shells exploded and tracers shot up into the sky like one of the '•fountains" of a fireworks display. After it was all over, we went back, but there was not a sign of the Flora left. There was not a chip to be seen."

A steamer of 1283 tons gross, the Flora was built at Hull, England, in 1882. She was bought by the Union Steam Ship Co., Ltd., from the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company in 1891 and became well known as a coastal passenger vessel. She also traded to the Islands. In 1916, she was disabled near Papeete and had to be towed back to Auckland. For some years she was in Shoal Bay, being used as an oil hulk.