PHŒNIX ISLANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23001, 2 October 1936, Page 5

PHŒNIX ISLANDS

CLAIMED FOR GREAT BRITAIN CRUISE OF NAVAL SLOOP (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Oct. 1. Having completed its annual winter cruise to the South Pacific Islands, the sloop Leith returned to Auckland early this afternoon. The Island groups included in the Leith’s cruise were Tonga, Fiji, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the Phoenix Islands, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia, which she left on September 26, calling only at Norfolk Island on the way home. The most important action performed by the sloop during the cruise was the establishment of notice boards at some of the uninhabited Phcenix Islands claiming them for Great Britain. This was done as a result of Japanese and American activities in the South Pacific recently. At the Phoenix group, too, the Leith left two large water tanks taken from Auckland for the New Zealand solar expedition of next year. The cruise was uneventful. At New Hebrides the crew made their first acquaintance of cannibals, and once they entered a village where they met a number of warriors armed with old Snider carbines carried at full cock.

The officers and ratings of the Leith will be paid off in December, and will leave on their return to England by the Rangitata on December 17, their two and a-half years’ period having been curtailed by several months in order to have them sent Home ahead of the expected rush of passengers from New Zealand for the Coronation ceremonies. Officers and ratings to replace them will arrive at Auckland by the Rangitane on December 16.