DRY-DOCK CAPSIZED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 212, 7 September 1945, Page 5

DRY-DOCK CAPSIZED

H.M.S. VALIANT DISABLED AT TRINCOMALEE EARLY INCIDENT IN WAR. Recd. 11.15 p.m. London, Sept. 6. Among long-withheld stories that can now be told is that of a floating dry-dock capsizing at Trincomalee, main base of the British East Indies Station Command, and the consequent disabling of H.M.S. Valiant, says Reuter's correspondent. The dock, a prefabricated American job, was assembled at Calcutta and taken to Trincomalee. The dock promptly collapsed when the Valiant, first battleship to use it, entered. The loss of the dock at that stage of the war was not critical, but it sank inside one of the narrowest entries to the inner anchorage, reducing Trincomalee to a stores and fuelling anchorage, with minor repair facilities, and necessitating long voyages to rear bases in Africa and Australia for periodic overhauls. The Valiant herself had to be taken to Suez for repair. She was reported to be seaworthy, but is now obsolete.