STORY OF THE PORT

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 58, 6 September 1945, Page 8

STORY OF THE PORT

FAMOUS WARTIME VISITORS

CAVALCADE OF SEA POWER

During' nearly six years of war New Zealand, though fai removed from the scenes of conflict, saw much of the operation of sea power in its fullest sense. After the outbreak of hostilities tlie people of Wellington and Auckland, and in a lesser degree those of the Dominion's smaller ports, had the evidence of that vital factor in the prosecution of the war constantly before their eyes in the coming's and goings of British and Allied warships and of merchant ships of all the United Nations. Wellington frequently saw many of the world's largest and most famous liners, as well as hundreds of ships, designed and built for trades having not the remotest connection with New Zealand, which all played their part in the grim business of war. Truly it was a cavalcade of sea power that this generation at least is not likely to see again.

The liners that have visited Wellington during the past six years, many of them more than once, included the following., the gross tonnages being given in parentheses:— AQUITANIA, Cunard White Star (44,780). ILE DX FRANCE, French (43,430). EMPRESS OF BRITAIN, Canadian Pacific (42,328). XIEUW AMSTERDAM, Dutch (3(i,257). MAURETANIA, Canard White Star (3.1,739). DOMINION MONARCH, Shaw Savill (27,155). WEST POINT (ex America), U.S.A. (27,000). EMPRESS OF JAPAN (Empress of Scotland since 1941), Canadian Pacific (20,032). ANDES, Royal Mail Line (25,05!)). STIRLING CASTLE, Union Castle (25,530). MOUNT VERNON (ex Washington), U.S.A. (24,289). WAKEFIELD (ex Manhattan), U.S.A. (24.259). MONTICELLO (ex the Kalian Conle Grande), U.S.A. (23,801). HERMITAGE (ex the Italian Cante Biancaniano), U.S.A. (23,255). ORJON, Orient Line (23,371). ORCADES, Orient Line (23,456). EMPRESS OF CANADA, Canadian Pacific (21,517). STRATHAIRD, P. and O. Line (22,281). PRESIDENT COOLIDGE, U.S.A. (21,930). REPUBLIC, U.S.A. (21,200). MOOLTAN, P. and 0. Litie (20,952). ORANJE, Dutch hospital ship (20,017). JOHANN VAN OLDENBARXEVELT, Dutch (19,429). CERAMIC, Shaw Savill (15.713). MATSONIA, U.S.A. (17,220). EMPRESS OF RUSSIA, Canadian Pacific (16,810). BUYS, Dutch (14,153). BATORY, Polish (14.237). ESPERANCE BAY, Shaw Savill (14,204). MORETON BAY, Shaw Savill (14,193). TEGELBERG, Dutch (14,150). PRESIDENT GRANT, U.S.A. (14,119). SOBIESKI, rolish (11,030). AMERIKA, Danish (10,21S). The arrival and departure of these and many other ships marked, in several ways, the various phases of the war against the Axis Powers. Always they were one of the solid assurances of sea power and the promise of ultimate victory by the United Nations. So long as the ships were able to "pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions". with their precious cargoes, whether of troops or of the supplies that were essential to the prosecution of the war, there was cause for optimism even in the darkest days of the struggle. THE FIRST ECHELON DEPARTS. The sailing of the First Echelon of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. was an historic occasion. The convoy comprised the transports Orion, Strathaird, Empress of Canada, Rangitata, Dunera, and the Polish liner Sobieski, with the escorts the British battleship Ramillies, the Australian cruiser Canberra, and the New Zealand cruiser Leander. The main section of the convoy sailed from Wellington on the morning of January 6, 1940, joining company in Cook Strait with the Leander and the Dunera and Sobieski, which a day or two earlier had gone on to Lyttelton to embark the .South Island troops. A high light in shipping history was the assembly in April, 1940, of the convoy for the transport of the Second Echelon which comprised the Aquitania, Empress of Britain, Empress of Japan, and Andes. The sight of the three first-mentioned ships berthed in Wellington was a memorable one, and even more striking was the spectacle as they passed down the harbour and through the Heads on a beautiful, mild morning. The Andes went down to Lyttelton for her quota of troops and joined the convoy in Cook Strait on May 2, escort being provided by the Australian cruiser Australia and the Leander. MAURETANIA'S FIRST VISIT. Wellingtonians had another thrill in August, 1940, when the famous new Mauretania arrived, followed four days later by the Empress of Japan and the Orient liner Orcades, the latter going on to Lyttelton. This convoy sailed for the Middle East on August 28, 1940. And so it went on for nearly six

years. In January, 1941, came the beautiful Nieuw Amsterdam, pride of the Netherlands merchant marine. This ship made no fewer than eight visits to Wellington, six of them during 1943, when she carried large quotas of United States troops across the Pacific. Another handsome Dutch liner was the Oranje, a remarkable triple-screw vessel which, fitted out and commissioned by the Netherlands Government as a hospital ship, was placed at the disposal of Australia and New Zealand and made a number of calls at Wellington from August 31, 1941, onwards. The great Aquitania made four visits to Wellington, and the Mauretania was here five times, once with American troops from San Francisco in January, 1943, and finally as recently as last month with repatriated prisoners of war. Another notable visitor, the great He de France, came in on Christmas Day, 1942. The Polish liner Batory carried New Zealand troops from Wellington in November, 1940, and the Dutch ship Johann yon Oldenbarneyelt, of nearly 20,000 tons, did likewise in September, 1941. The Empress of Japan, which became the Empress of Scotland after the entry of Japan into the war, visited Wellington twice under her new name. THE AMERICAN FLOOD. Following the outbreak of war with Japan there came to Wellington many British, American, and Dutch ships which had been turned away from Far Eastern waters. They included many fine British Blue Funnel and Dutch cargo liners. Then, as America gathered her strength for the conflict, came a stream of liner-transports and freighters that swelled rapidly to a flood that poured across the Pacific for more than two years. Among the ' earliest American arrivals in 1942 were several President and Matson liners, including the President Polk, President Grant, President Coolidge, Matsonia, and Monterey, as well as the Republic, an ex-German liner of pre-1914 vintage. Then came America's three great transatlantic liners crammed with marines and other troops. They were the West Point (only completed in 1939 as the America), the Mount Vernon (ex Washington), and the Wakefield (ex Manhattan). It was the Wakefield which brought the spearhead of the Americans who were later to engage in the Guadalcanal campaign, and none among those who watched the ship berth on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon that winter could forget the scene. As the great ship came alongside the wharf, its decks crammed with men, the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band broke into the "Star Spangled Banner." Instantly every man on the liner, most striking of all those at anti-aircraft stations on the boat deck and elsewhere, sprang to attention, as did every person on the wharf, and they remained rigid until the last notes had died away. The West Point and the Mount Vernon made several visits to Wellington. Later there came the Monticello and the Hermitage, both former Italian transatlantic liners which had been seized in American ports. MANY NATIONALITIES. There were many other interesting ships in and out of Wellington in 1942. One was the French Messageries Maritime motor liner Marechal Joffre, of 12,696 tons, a ship with square funnels which returned later under the United States flag as the Rochambeau. There were the Amerika, of the Danish East Asiatic Line, and the Bloemfontein and the Jagersfontein, of the Holland-Africa Line. There were the Minsk and other Russian ships bound to Vladivostok, and even a Yugoslav tramp, the Recina, from Tocopilla, Chile. Greek ships were not infrequent visitors, and big

Norwegian tankers came with British and American ships of their type. The largest was the Norwegian Hoegh Grant, of 10,990 gross tons. During 1942, too, Wellington saw evidence of the ship-building miracle that was being wrought in the United States. Liberty ships, loaded to their marks with war supplies and carrying enormous deck loads of tanks and crated aircraft, began to arrive in ones and twos from the Pacific Coast on their way to Australia. Their numbers rapidly increased and frequently there were five or six arriving and as many departing in a single day. But the number that called at Wellington were only a fraction-of those crossing the Pacific carrying millions of tons of arms and supplies for the fighting forces of the United Nations. Hundreds of the Liberty ships that were seen in Wellington Harbour were the products of Henry Kaiser's shipyards and arrived here fully loaded only a few weeks after they had been launched. All of them bore the names of men and women who had figured in public life in the United States. Many of the ships that visited Wellington during the war years were lost through enemy action, whether tor-