HAPPY ENDING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21323, 18 April 1939, Page 7

HAPPY ENDING

YOUNG AIR PILOT’S CLOSE CALL

EXCITING EFFORT TO CATCH STEAMER

By Telegraph--Press Association

AUCKLAND, April 17.

A breathless half an hour, in attempting to find a launch to catch the ship which was to take him to England, for training with the Royal Air Force, was by chance brought to a happy ending to-night for a young New Zealand pilot, who missed the Shaw Savill and Albion motorship Waimarama, when she left from the King’s wharf for London. The pilot was J. A. Paterson, of Waikaka, near Gore, who with seven other New Zealand pilots was a passenger by the Waimarama. Paterson, who recently completed a course of training at Wigram, had taken all his luggage to the Waimarama during the day, and arrived at the wharf shortly after 9 o’clock to-night to find that the ship was moving down stream.

Fearing that his hopes for the voyage to England had failed, Paterson made frantic efforts to find a launch to take him after the Waimarama. About 20 minutes after the ship had sailed, he called at the harbourmaster’s Queen’s wharf office, where by good fortune the owner of the launch Alert was making a visit. The Alert immediately put out after the Waimarama, which was signalled from Mount Victoria. The hip stopped in the Rangitoto Channel about 9.45, and after a wait of about 10 minutes, the launch came alongside, and the young officer was able to join the outgoing vessel.