“DYNAMITE SHIP”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 245, 15 October 1937, Page 9

“DYNAMITE SHIP”

BOXES DROPPED ON WHARF EXPLOSION KILLS WORKERS exciting experience Two members of the crew of the steamer Mahana were left behind when that vessel sailed from New Plymouth at midnight on Wednesday, states the Taranaki Herald. One was in custody awaiting payment on his behalf of £4 Is 6d in lines and expenses imposed on him for offences of which he was convicted by Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., at a special sitting of the Police Court on Wednesday evening. The other, whose sense of time was lost in the course of his attentions to a young woman, missed his ship and was taken to Wanganui by a friendly motorist making the trip, to join the ship there. Before leaving New Plymouth he entertained a small group of listeners with a story of some exciting experiences he had while serving on what was known as a “dynamite ship.” With his pockets empty he wondered into the Panama Canal zone where he was brought before the Court for vagrancy and forced to spend several days in gaol. Two American soldiers had killed a marine in a fight. They were imprisoned and later sentenced to death. The seaman found himself in an adjoining cell and was persuaded by his neighbours to try a potent drug. He found his senses leaving him, his body became as light as air, but try as he would in a mad frenzy he could not break down the bars that locked the window. The funeral procession of the dead soldiers passed under his window and he was forced by some strange power to stare at it and laugh and laugh hideously. Dangerous as Name Sounded But, he recovered and eventually found his way aboard a ship where life was far from dull. It was known as the “dynamite ship” and, he said, was as dangerous as it sounded. Thousands of boxes of dynamite were stowed below. In the ordinary run of things a collision would have been an extremely remote possibility, but collisions, the ship and its crew had to contend with night and day, for a hurricane had wrecked the coast line and timber rafts had broken loose. The sea was strewn with huge logs, every one of which menaced the safety of the ship and its crew. They reached port safely only to find that more excitement still, was in store for them. The boxes of dynamite were being unloaded in slings, a most irregular procedure. It was nerve-wracking work. Half of the cargo had been safely dumped on the wharf, when things happened, a , winchman made a mistake, the sling unhooked and twenty boxes of death fell to the deck. The noise was heard for miles, the wharf was wrecked and three watersiders were killed.

“Life in New Zealand is quiet,” he added and that could easily be understood after the recounting of his experiences.