A MAORI PROPHECY

Northland Age, Volume 26, Issue 49, 27 April 1927, Page 5

A MAORI PROPHECY

FULFILLED IN GREAT WAR The February issue of “The Navy,” the journal of the Navy League, contains a report of a lecture given by Lieutenant-Com-mander Bahin, R.N., at the Technical Institute at Eastbourne. The lecturer told a curious story about his own ship, the Netv Zealand. Before the war she was visited by a Maori chief, who prophesied that she would be in action in a year or two’s time, and would he in four actions the only ship to be in every action in the North Sea. But tne Crew were not to worry, as no harm would come. The Maori chief asked permission to go to the masthead, and there he put his autograph. On returning to the deck, he said he would show the four places where the ship would be hit, but said there would not be a single casualty. He gave the ship a necklace of green jade stone, which the captain was to wear in action, and a strawplaited aproii to wear around his waist. These things remained in the ship. At the Battle of Jutland the skipper was persuaded to wear the apron. The ship went through the battle, and was the only one in the Navy in every single action in the North Sea. She was hit in only four places, as predicted by the Maori chief, and she did not have a single casualty.