IN SHORE ROLE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3295, 2 August 1943, Page 6

IN SHORE ROLE

THE LEANDER’S FLAG

' NOW IN NEW CALEDONIA WITH NEW ZEALAND TROOPS NEW CALEDONIA. Fluttering over the headquarters of a New Zealand Heavy Regiment on a Pacific island is a flag which at. one time graced the mainmast of H.M.S. Leander in battle. The story of its transfer from sea to land is an intriguing one of which perhaps to this day the officers of the New Zealand cruiser are not fully cognisant.

It happened that the Leander was in a. Pacific port of which part of the coastal defences were the responsibility of a New Zealand regiment. In an exchange of visits, the regimental officers, enjoying hospitality in the wardroom, and inspecting the cruiser’s ensigns, jokingly asked for the gift of one of them. In like manner the request was granted, but though even now the regiment's officers are not certain whether the Navy really expected the flag to be taken, the bunting nevertheless found its way ashore. Its removal in . quasi-secret manner was no mean feat, for it measured IS feet long. The landlubbers are proud enough of that part, of the proceedings, but for them the climax came when the Leander, passing their headquarters on her way to sea again, acknowledged the dipping of a flag on the regimental flagpole. Unanswered is the question: “Do the Leander’s officers yet know that the flag dipped by the regiment was in fact their own?”