CRUISER PRESENTED TO NEW ZEALAND.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3514, 28 June 1920, Page 5

CRUISER PRESENTED TO NEW ZEALAND.

H.M.S. CHATHAM'S RECORD. LONDON, May 6. The New Zealand Government has accepted the presentation by the lint , y perial Government of the light cruise? Chatham, which was paid off on the;" Ifith of %July last. The Chatham is, under orders to be reeommissioned as early as possible, and officers and crewwill be drawn from those who will volunteer to serve under the Dominion: Government, the complement of which has not up to the present been settled. Ratings will he allowed to volt unteer under either of the following categories:—(l) Those who wish to " transfer permanently from the Royal Navy, in which case they will be re* quired to volunteer for three years, and to sign an undertaking that they forfeit all claim to pension or gratlily from the Admiralty; and (2) those | who wish to be lent from the Royal Navy for a period of three years. Ju eitiher case the terms of agreement; will be exactly similar to those in the case of ratings transferred or lent to the Royal Australian Navy, with, the same rates of pay, w T hich will in no case be less than R.N. rates. : H.M.S. Chatham, of .5400 tons displacement, and armed "with nine 6«f inch 50-- calibre guns, four three* pounders, and two 21-inch torpedo tubes, is of the latest type of light' cruiser completed before ;the war broke, out, and her sister ships, the Dublin and Southampton, are how serving ia Mediterranean and South American, waters respectively. A nominal speed of 25i knots is developed from he* 25,000 horse-power turbines. The vest sel was launched at Chatham in No-* i vember, some ten months after the laying of the keel, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Kent, the Mart chioness Camden, performing the' naming ceremony. Under the command of Captain S. R. Dxury Lowe, theChatham was first commissioned in 1912, and attached to the Second 'Baltic Squadron, and in the following year she was allocated to the Mediterranean. She shadowed the Goeben in the early days of the war and was then despatched to the Red Sea to clear the line of passage for troops from India to Egypt. On her wayshe captured an Austrian ship, the Maricnbad, and "took her to Alexandria, but the prize was released short* ly afterwards under Article 111. of the Sixth Hague Convention (days of grace), to which Austria, but not Cermany, had subscribed. The Chatham afterwaTds located and blockaded the German cruiser Konigsberg in the Rufiji River, East Africa, and served at Gallipoli during the expedition, her captain >eing awarded the C.M.G.

I Returning in 1916, the Chatham is | mentioned by Lord Jellieoe as having i been present in the operations in I August of that year. She afterwards became flagship- of the Third Light Cruiser Squadron, and flew the flag of Rear-Admiral Allen T. Hunt, C. 8., C. 5.1., at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. Last (September Lieutenant H. C. Mayo. 0.8. E., was appointed to command the sloop Laburnum, which is shortly being reeommissioned for duty in the New Zealand station, but at present no appointments have been definitely made. Lieutenant Mayo knows Now Zealand fairly well, as he was out, there on several occasions some years ago. One of his brothers has settled in the Feilding district. Another brother —his own twin —who had been farming near Feilding 'formany years, was a lieutenant in the 6th Wellington Rifles, and, unfortunately, was hilled in action at Gallipoli. The Laburnum is still in dock at Queenstown. fitting out, and no date has yet been given for her completion.' Like her sister ship, the Veronica, the Laburnum was completed about the middle of 1915, having been built by Messrs Connell. This sloop is of 1210 tons, speed 16-J knots. and is armed with 4in guns. She was paid off at Devonport a year ago.