NAVAL DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1941, Page 6

NAVAL DEFENCE

MANY NEW ZEALANDERS ON ACTIVE SERVICE RECORD OF DEVELOPMENT. DOMINION’S CONTRIBUTION. Naval development has been a prominent feature of New Zealand’s war effort. A large number of New Zealand registered ships of various types including one well-known passenger ship, several coastal vessels and fishing trawlers and many of the fast seaworthy motor launches at Auckland have been taken up and converted for naval purposes; these vessels are all now in commission as warships and are actively and continuously employed. It has been the policy, by utilising the New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and other naval re-

serves, and to a considerable extent officers and men of thb New Zealand Mercantile Marine, to man all these extra ships from local resources, while at the same time replacing officers and men on loan to the New Zealand Naval Forces from the Royal Navy as well as sending substantial numbers overseas to serve in ships of the Royal Navy. , This policy has naturally resulted in a very large increase in New Zealand naval personnel and it is now the case that the total numbers borne are three times greater than before the war. It is of interest, also, to note that the number of New Zealand naval personnel on loan to the- Royal Navy now exceeds the number on loan from the Royal Navy. It is not yet possible at this comparatively early stage of development to replace all the remaining officers and men borrowed from the Royal Navy because they are mostly senior and specialist officers, and higher specialist ratings. It is not, of course, permissible to give actual figures, but since the beginning of the war there has been a steady

recruitment of New Zealanders for training in various classes of technical ratings such as artificers, artisans and signalmen and telegraphists; and large regular batches are being sent to England for training as officers for ordinary duties and in the Fleet Air Arm. A number of officers of the New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve are in command of minesweepers at home, in respect of which service some of them have been decorated by his Majesty the King. Thus, New Zealand naval officers and men are to be found on service in various parts of the world, some dispersed in ships of the Fleet, and others serving in the New Zealand cruiser which is operating in distant waters. They are carrying out hazardous tasks in the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, also in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and in tropical seas washing along the equatorial belt. New Zealand seamen, in fact, are w.ellknowh almost all over the world.

Our warships have played a conspicuous part in naval actions in the destruction of enemy raiders. The part played by H.M.S. Achilles in the destruction of the Admiral Graf Spee will never be forgotten, and H.M.S. Le-

ander has more recently been responsible for the destruction ,of a small Italian armed raider, Ramb I. and took part in the disposal of two enemy’ supply ships.

' One of the most interesting recent developments in New Zealand’s contribution to the naval war has been the setting up of a special training establishment on Mbtuihi Island in the Hauraki Gulf. With the existing quarantine station buildings, modified and modernised, and new buildings and equipment, H.M.S. “Tamaki”—as this establishment is called—is producing a regular flow of seamen, stokers and other ratings, most of whom will bo drafted on the completion of their short intensive course of training to ships of the Royal Navy. In tiie meantime much unspectacular but essential work is being carried on in the ports and waters of the Dominion. Various services are performed in respect of merchant shipping for its protection both from attack by enemy raiders and for its safeguard against contact and magnetic mines. The fitting of ships with defensive equipment—guns, paravanes, “degaussing”—is carried out continuously in New Zealand ports, and defensively equipped merchant ships are to be found all over the world fitted out in New Zealand and carrying New Zealand naval ratings as their gunlayers. The New Zealand minesweepers ' and patrol launches are constantly at sea in all weathers and lhe New Zealand cruisers steam thousands of miles a month in the course of their patrol and escort duties. I

A year before the outbreak of the present war. the Minister of Defence, the Hon F. Jones, in a public statement. outlined a more progressive policy by the Government for training naval reservists, for providing suitable craft for local defence in times of emergency, for the establishment of an instructional centre at Auckland. and for the construction of naval barracks. All these and other essential services for the maintenance of the sea-going squadron have been inaugurated, and the Naval Dockyard at Auckland has been developed and expanded so that it can now carry out major refits of cruisers. Indeed, most of them have been completed, giving effect to lhe policy of maintaining a mobile and efficient. squadron based on New Zealand. Much of the development virtually 1 anticipated an emergency, with (lie! result that New Zealand has been able to play an effective part in naval defence.