EXERCISES END

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 139, 10 December 1945, Page 9

EXERCISES END

CARRIER GOES NORTH

P.A. INDEFATIGABLE, Dec. 9. The aircraft-carrier Indefatigable and the destroyers Wizard and Urchin have completed their exercises in Cook Strait and adjacent areas and leave Queen Charlotte Sound tonight for Auckland. Going by way of the east coast, the carrier will fly aircraft, off tomorrow and send them over parts of Hawke's Bay, including Napier. On Tuesday afternoon an air group will fly over Auckland, and on Wednesday morning the three ships will berth at Auckland.

Yesterday was devoted to flying and gunnery exercise between Tasman Bay and the Wellington coast. Today has been largely given over to allowing as many visitors on board as could be ferried from Picton to the anchorage a few miles away from the town.

The three ships yesterday went to sea soon after sunrise, Seafires and Fireflies being flown off for an earlymorning patrol. Two Seafires later reported engine trouble and were landed on safely. All the other aircraft were also batted in by the deck-landing officers without incident. In the afternoon the carrier fired her 4.5 in guns at a distant target. The gunnery exercises over, the carrier ordered one of the destroyers fairly close alongside. A thick hose was rigged between the two ships and the big one replenished the oil tanks of the smaller ship. Later, the other destroyer was refuelled.