THE OLYMPIC’S WAR RECORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16462, 14 June 1919, Page 3

THE OLYMPIC’S WAR RECORD.

OVER 200,000 PERSONS CARRIED. The White Star liner Olympic has a very remarkable war recox'd. She is one of the largest steamers in the world, being 882 J feet long and 92$ feet broad, with a gross tonnage of 46,359 tons. There are ten decks, seven, of which are for the use' of .passengers, over 2400 of whom can be accommodated. At the outbreak of war she was outward bound for New York, and immediately the care and solicitude Of the. navy for the merchant service was evinced by a summons to her to report at a certain position where she was met by one of his Majesty’s cruisers and escorted safely into New York. •She was turned round with very little delay and arrived home again in the middle of the month. She mad©-three more voyages* as a peaeful merchant, vessel. In those voyages she carried some 6000 pasengers back to America, who were anxious to return home and escape the scourge that was being, laid upon Europe. On her return she came successively to Liverpool, the Clyde,, and Belfast, and before her arrival at' the last named port she had already shown her affectionate regard for the senior service by the gallant rescue of the crew of H.M.S. Audacious and of the attempted salving of the ship herself off the north coast of Ireland, the story of which was recently recorded in the press. She lay at the port-of Belfast for some months, the phase of the war in those days not having accentuated the need for transport service that became more acute later, hut in the autumn of 1915 she came forth as a commissioned transport, a diffident and humble auxiliary of the great navy of which we are so proud, and was used to transport troops to Mudros, the base for our Gallipoli campaign. She made four voyages to' the Mediterranean, carrying between Eng lend and Mudros some 25,000 troops. She was already marked out for enemy attack, but successfully evaded more than one determined effort to end her days, and as a counter-blast she had the satisfaction, of rescuing in the Medi terranean the crow of a French vessel sunk by an Austrian submarine,. for which rescue .Captain Hayes received tho tlianks of the French Government and a gold medal. 'The Olympic was back at Belfast at the beginning of 1,917 for a short breather and overhaul until on April 4, 1917, on the Clyde, she was commissioned under the White Ensign, a proud distinction, the right to which has been w-orthily upheld. She plunged immediately on her career of restless activity on the North Atlantic, which she knew so well, carrying troops from Canada, the United States and others who have come from further distances, the Chinese Labour battali< ns and repatriated Canadian wounded anti sick. We,are the fortunate position to have with us to-day a representative of our American cousins, and 1 hope of our Canadian brothers. It may b© interesting to know that during her co lumission,, which has just terminated, the Olympic canned over 100, 000 Canadians, over- 45,000 United States troops, the majority of these being bound for the front. During her war service she has carried some 201,000 persons; of these 176,000 were carried during the commission under the White Ensign. On February 5 the White Ensign was lowered ,and on the following day the Red Ensign was hoisted. . , The White Star -Line, it may be added, lost nine steamers, aggregating 148,145 tons, through enemy action during the war, among them being the Britannic, of 48,158 tons. ,