STRANDED IN SYDNEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 6

STRANDED IN SYDNEY

DOMINION NAVAL RATINGS SPECIAL TRIP FOR CORVETTE P.A. AUCKLAND. Dec. 2. Forty young New Zealand naval ratings waiting in Sydney with remote prospects of securing early passages to the Dominion are to be brought home by the corvette Arbutus, commanded by Lieutenant-commander J. F. A. O’Neill. The ship will leave Wellington for Sydney on Sunday and will arrive at Auckland on her return voyage about December 19, in time for her passengers to take Christmas leave.

The seamen now in Sydney are ratings who were lent to ships of the Royal Navy in the Far Eastern Command to complete their shipboard training as seamen boys. When their qualifying term of service expired they were returned to Sydney, but there was no likelihood of securing accommodation for the party in a New Zealand-bound ship from Australia for at least several months. There are also a number of New Zealand cadets studying at the military college at Duntroon who may be able to take advantage of the visit of the Arbutus. Now qualified as ordinary seamen, the ratings from Sydney will be required for manning the corvette Arbutus and the anti-submarine minesweeper Kiwi. These ships, which are now refitting after being in rer serve at Devonport since the end of the war, are expected to be recommissioned early next year.