DAUNTLESS NOW A WRECK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 397, 4 July 1928, Page 1

DAUNTLESS NOW A WRECK

She was built in 1918 and was formerly attached to the First Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet; but she has been for a considerable period in Chinese waters, returning Home last January. She then proceeded to the Bermuda base of the North America and West Indies Station, and set out on Friday on a tour of Canadian and Newfoundland ports. It is understood she lies in a very

exposed position. Efforts to refloat her last night were made by the tugs of the naval and port authorities of Halifax, but without success. The Dauntless, a sister ship to the Dunedin and Diomede, visited Auckland in 1924 with the Special Service Squadron. She displaces 4,760 tons and is armed with six 6in, 18 smaller guns (including two anti-aircraft) and 12 torpedo tubes in triple deck mountings. The Dauntless differs in appearance from the New Zealand cruisers in that

she is without the high “trawler bow” and is fitted with an airplane hangar in place of the usual bridge-work for’ard. She was laid down in September, 1916, as part of the emergency war programme but not completed until a month after the armistice. In 1919 she was employed on detached service in the West Indies, later joining the First Light Cruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. It is a coincidence that the last British cruiser to be wrecked, H.M.S. Raleigh (then a new ship of 10,000 tons) went ashore off the Labrador coast, north of Nova Scotia, in 1922.