H.M.S. PHILOMEL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23601, 9 March 1940, Page 10

H.M.S. PHILOMEL

After 50 years' service in the Royal Navy, H.M.S. Philomel, training ship for the New Zealand Squadron, has apparently outlived her usefulness and is (o be replaced by a modern naval barracks on the present parade and recreation grounds at the Devonport Naval Base. The need for this new accommodation is urgent, for recruiting to the Dominion's naval forces has been vastly extended since the days when H.M.S. Chatham constituted the main strength of the newly-formed New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy. And yet, urgent as the need is for improved training facilities, it is to be hoped that (he Government's decision to proceed with the erection of naval barracks docs not mean that the Philomel is to be incontinently scrapped. In spite of her age and in spite of the fact that her engines have been dismantled for the past 1(5 years, the old ship can still serve a useful purpose in various phases of naval instruction. More important still is the fact that she is the birthplace of the Dominion's naval tradition. She helped to convoy the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the last war, but her strongest hold on the affections of New Zealanders is to be found in the fact that she has been the iloating home and school for hundreds of seamen boys and stokers who have entered the service of the Royal Navy at its most distant outpost. More than half the men who fought in the Achilles in the battle of the River Plate had their lirst experience of naval life in the Philomel. The shore establishment at the Devonport base is essential in the interests of efficiency, but it may still be possible to make some use of the Philomel in the interests of tradition.