LOST TORPEDO

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 September 1934, Page 9

LOST TORPEDO

AUCKLAND EXERCISES INCIDENT [PEB PRESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, September 13. A torpedo which was fired from the warship “Dunedin,” the flagship of Rear Admiral Burges-Watson, during exercises in Hauraki Gulf on Wednesday, went astray, after the occasional habit of its kind, and was not recovered until this morning. Torpedoes are valued at over £2OOO. and owing to the early departure of the “Dunedin” for Australia, the early recovery of the lost projectile was a matter of considerable importance. In company with other ships of the division, the Diomede, Laburnum, and the Admiralty trawler Wiikakura, the Dunedin went out into the- Gulf last Monday for a second period of gunnery exercises. During the final exercises yesterday the two-cruisers took part in a combined torpedo attack, in which 12 torpedoes were fired at a moving target. After the attack, the cruisers set out to retrieve the torpedoes, but one fired from the Dunedin could not be found. Word was received this morning from a seaplane that the truant had been sighted, floating peacefully on- the surface near Little Barrier Island. The sweeping operations immediately ceased. The cruisers leave Auckland together on Monday for Sydney, arriving next Friday, and sailing from Sydney on October 6. They will be al Hobart from October 8 to 16. and will then act with the .ships of the Royal Australian Navy as a royal escort, to Prince Henry.