TRUANT TORPEDO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22367, 14 September 1934, Page 10

TRUANT TORPEDO

MISSING AFTER EXERCISES RECOVERY OF PROJECTILE. (Per United Press Association.) # AUCKLAND, September 13. A torpedo which was fired from the warship Dunedin, the flagship of Rearadmiral 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 arc valued at over £2OOO, and owing to the early departure of the Dunedin for Australia the quick recovery of the lost projectile was a matter of considerable importance. In company with the other ships of the division —the Diomede, the Laburnum and the Admiralty trawler Wakakura — 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 iu 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, and sweeping operations were immediately censed. The cruisers will leave Auckland together on Monday for Sydney, arriving next Friday. Sailing from Sydney on October 6, they will be at Hobart fiom October 8 to 16, and will then act with the ships of the Royal Australian Navy as a royal escort to Prince Henry.