N.Z. Warships Leave To-day on Final Voyage

Grey River Argus, 15 April 1948, Page 5

N.Z. Warships Leave To-day on Final Voyage

CREWS TO BRING BACK FRIGATES

P.A. AUCKLAND, April 14. Two New Zealand corvettes, the Arabis and Arbutus, will leave for Britain on Thursday on what may be their final voyage in the naval service. There will be 80ft paying-off pennants tailing from the mainmasts, which will indicate the end of their commission.

On arrival at Portsmouth at the end of June, they will be laid up in reserve, while their New Zealand crews prepare the first of six frigates which have been acquired for the Royal New Zealand Navy. Leaving their berths at Devonport naval base at noon, the corvettes will set a course for Sydney. From there they will proceed to Portsmouth, via Cairns, Darwin, Singapore, Colombo, Aden, Suez, Benghazi, Malta and Gibraltar.

Their future, following their return to the Admiralty, has not been announced, but it is expected that they will be placed in the immediate reserve, and perhaps later will be scrapped, or else sold to foreign navies. The first task of the ships’ companies of the corvettes, after reaching Britain, will be to prepare the vessels for entry in the reserve fleet. Stores, ammunition and many perishable fittings will be removed. The engines and gunnery equipment will be prepared for an indefinite term of idleness, when rust and corrosion are the enemies, and the upper works and hull will receive a final coat of paint for added protection, while the ships lay indefinitely at. their moorings. FRIGATES FOR N.Z. Once this work is completed, the corvettes’ crews will turn to the preparation of the first two of the six frigates which are being secured by the Dominion under the new defence policy. Working in conjunction with dockyards in the United Kingdom, they will accept the ships from the Reserve, and prepare them for sea before beginning the customary series of working up exercises which will precede the voyage home. The men have not yet been allocated to the new vessels, but it is expected that some of the ratings from the Arabis and the Arbutus will remain in Britain for the commissioning of the later frigates. The corvettes will make their voyage to Britain under the command of Commander L. F. Bourke, D. 5.0., R.D., R.N.Z.N., in the Arabis. About 20 ratings from other ships and establishments will also take passage in the two ships. On arrival in Britain. f}<y will be loaned to the Royal Navy in order to receive instruction in higher specialist departments of the service. They will return to New Zealand later.