Cattle For Solomons

Northern Advocate, 19 July 1949, Page 4

Cattle For Solomons

AUCKLAND. Tue (Sp.)— Bound for Russell Island, north of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the largest shipment of cattle ever to leave New Zealand left Auckland yesterday in the tank landing ship Rawhiti. The cattle comprising 379 head of beef and dairy stock and six riding horses are consigned to a sugar company's plantation at Yandina Landing on Russell Island, over which were fought many of the air battles which helped to break the strength of the Japanese in the South-West Pacific. During the Japanese occupation and in the reconstruction period the herds on the island were almost wiped out. Most of the cattle were purchased from the Whangarei and Kaikohe districts, railed to Panmure, and then transported to the Rawhiti in trucks which drove into the ship through the bow doors and discharged their loads direct into pens. At Yandina Landing the cattle will walk ashore on to the beach down die tank ramp. The ship will then go to Tulagi, a small islet off the coast of Guadalcanal, to loud a cargo for Rabaul, New Britain. The next stage of the journey will be to Wewak, New Guinea, to load a cargo for Suva, from there to Truk, where the Japanese had a strong garrison during the war, and finally to Sydney.