N.Z. RESERVISTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20114, 7 December 1939, Page 5

N.Z. RESERVISTS

VESSEL’S GUN-CREW PASSENGERS’ TRANSFER Three members of the New Zea land Royal Naval Reserve, two Aucklanders and one Dunedinite, were included in the gun-crew aboard th< Doric Star, the Blue Star liner which is reported to have been attacked ii the South Atlantic by a German raider, and presumably captured anr' sunk. The ship had a total comple meat of 66, under Captain Stubbs, with Mr. W. Ray as Chief engineer. Tlwo women passengers joined the Daric Star at Auckland, her last Nev. Zealand port, to make the voyage t.: England, but they were fortunate in securing a transfer to one of the Blue Stfar Line’s more modern ships wiser the Doric Star touched at Sydney to pick up a shipment of Australian wool. They were to have been the only passengers, and they and their friends can derive some satisfaction from a fortunate escape from a mos awkward experience, assuming that the Doric Star was captured and her complement removed before her destruction. The ship left New Zealand with 90,000 boxes of butter, 15,000 crates of cheese, and 90,000 freight carcases of meat in her refrigerated space. Her general cargo included 3000 bales of New Zealand wool, and quantities of canned meats, tallow, and m'ilk powder. She was to pick up the bulk of her general cargp, including 9000 bales' of wool, in Sydney, and every inch of cargo space, amounting in al-1 to more than 700,000 cubic feet, would be filled before her departure from that port for the United Kingdom, via the Cape of Good Hope. The Doric Star is the first ship regularly employed in the New Zealand trade to be reported as believed lost by enemy action in the present war.