LOSS OF MINESWEEPER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23965, 15 May 1941, Page 8

LOSS OF MINESWEEPER

Once again the hand of war has stretched out to the coastline, of New Zealand. The sinking yesterday of the minesweeper Puriri, with the loss of five gallant lives, is proof that even in this distant coiner of the Pacific we are not free from the enemy menace. Last year the liner Niagara was sunk when she struck a mine near the approaches to the Hauraki Gulf—only one of the many examples of German lawlessness in a brutal war on merchant shipping. Happily on that, occasion there was no loss of life, but since then our own minesweepers have been constantly engaged in an effort to remove the threat of these hidden weapons. The work entailed lias never been free from danger: it is only piopoitionatelv less hazardous than that performed by trawlers and drifters round the British coasts, wheie mines are numbered in thousands instead of in dozens. The New Zea landers engaged in these duties, some of whom have now become casualties of war, are thus members of a great brotherhood of sailors whose endless story, in this war as in the last, is one. of shining valour and devotion to duty. The loss of the Puriri must be accepted as one of the grim incidents of war which are constantly happening in other parts of the world. Those who have died are entitled to share the tribute which Lord Jellicoe paid to the minesweeper crews the last war —a tribute to the "hardihood. courage and dogged persistence of these fine seamen."