WIRELESS DUEL
—: —OCALLS FOR WARSHIPS For thirty, hours last November, two ships steamed side by side in African waters, only a short distance separating them. Both were sending out wireless messages at hourljr intervals, and their signals were being read avidly in Berlin and Whitehall. The ships were the m.v.; Waimarama, the Shaw Savill and Albion 12,843-, ton liner, and a Nazi vessel, the Adolf Woermann. For more than a day they rose to every wave together. On the two bridges anxious eyes scanned the horizon. Would a British cruiser appear, - or would the Graf Spes shoot suddenly into sight over the brim of the ocean? • On the bridge oi the Waimarama, Captain James -Avern was impatient. with the burden of a great responsibility. He had a valuable cargo on board and many passengers. He was standing off his course, foi his suspicions had been aroused by the Adolf Woermann, badly disguised as a Portuguese. She was a valuable prize for Britain—if he could keep sending out her position to the Royal Navy so that she could be captured and taken to port. Yet, if the Graf Spce known to be in those waters, arrived first his ship would be smashed and sunk, passengers might be killed and thou sands of pounds lost to his company and the Empire. After a long wait, a British cruiser steamed into sight, and with a triumphant blast from 'her siren and another splatter of messages from the wireless room, the Waimarama se;t off on her course for Australia and New Zealand. For his action Captain Avern was awarded the 0.8. E. (Civil Division) and on August 6 he attended the Investiture at Buckingham Palace to receive his decoration from the King. The Admiralty allowed tlis; story of his action to be tokl for the first time. Captain Avern would have preferred to .say-., nothing about the incident at all,, but over a. game of snooker at his London Club lie gave a few details. "It all happened so long ago that there's really nothing to it," he said. "When we were off the Cape on the way to Australia, the chief officer reported the mast and funnel of a ship on the horizon nearly ahead. Having had an Admiralty message to say that a German ship was trying to get away from a West African port, I altered coursc to the eastward. "I thought she- looked a bit susK picious so I went and investigated. Finding she was rather poorly disguised as a Portuguese, I kept her under observation, and eventually, thanks to tlie Itoyal Navy, I was able to hand her over. That's all there was to it. Now, don't make a song about it, please. "By the way, you can teTl Tom Lowry Unit I hope to lie seeing him and others of my New Zealand friends cue day before long."
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Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 214, 18 September 1940, Page 3
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480WIRELESS DUEL Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 214, 18 September 1940, Page 3
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