HOSPITAL SHIP ARRIVES

Evening Star, Issue 16848, 25 September 1918, Page 6

HOSPITAL SHIP ARRIVES

SS INVALIDS DISEMBARKED

A hospital ship returned to Port Chalmors this morning. Eighty-eight patients, including three cot cases, were brought back bv her.

Colonel Falconer, Major Hickey, Captain Dobson, and Lieutenant William's motored to the Port this morning, arriving there at 6 o'clock. The vessel berthed half an hour later ,and next of kin were almost immediately allowed alongside the ship. Disembarkation was promptly carried out> and the returned soldiers proceeded to Dunedin by the 7.9 a.m. train. Cars provided by the Otago Motor Club carried the local men to their homes, and the others departed for their destinations by the north and south trains.

The cot cases left tho ship to come up to the Dunedin Hospital by the 11.30 a.m. train. The cot cases are:

Captain D. J. Walls, of Mosgiel, a main body man, who is suffering from extensive gunshot wounds. Soruennt E. M. Belosky, Dunedin, 19th Reinforcements, was wounded in the spine, and has not yet recovered the use oi Ins legs. Private J. Spiro, Dunedin, also of tho 19th Reinforcements, suffering from a badly fractured thigh. The ship's staff say that this draft of 542 for New Zealand was one of the best lots carried on any trip. They were cheery and always very reasonable, therefore the best relations existed.

Oolonrl Collins had charge of the soldiers, and Captain Dunbar-Sloan was ship's adjutant. A feature of the trip was an innovation introduced to accelerate disembarkation. The base records work was done by the ship's staff. It worked well. At the first port of call in th» Dominion disembarkation was effected in an hour; at Wellington and Lyttclton the time taken was in each c-ase ?0 minutes ; while this morning at Port Ch-almcrs it was reckoned to have occupied only a quarter of an hour.

Quite a number of the men returning by this draft have "won military decorations. Mine of them more than one. The Belgian decorations, of which there aro some, are. in the matter of get-up, of a very gorgeous style.

Tho Governor-General inspected the hospital ship this morning.