A PERILOUS VOYAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 March 1917, Page 7

A PERILOUS VOYAGE.

BY NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT. TWICE DRIVEN TO PORT, ESCORT OP 18 DESTROYERS. The Minister of Defence has been advised that the Reinforcement lias reached its destination in safety. —Daily Newspaper. , This customary, curt, official message, periodically dismissing in its 17 word* the anxieties of hundreds, sometimes conceals, as you shall learn from Dr. Bedford's story of the troopship Willochra's passage Home, a hundred hazzards run. It was not a normal troopship passage; indeed, Dr. Bedford states that they encountered difficulties greater than those met by any previous vessel, taking so long to complete their passage that they reached tneir destination only a day or two ahead of the iicvt reinforcement.

The earlier part of the voyage was uneventful, the ship's company had shaken down into their places, and the soothing'routine of a deep-wafer vessel had established its beneficial sway, when the wireless jarred them into consciousness that something was wrong. They were ordered to put into port,' and into a port that had never been a port of call for troopships. In this port they found a small fleet of British war vessels —a first-class battleship, three armored cruisers and several armed merchantmen—and amongst these tliey lay for ten days, their company gradually swelling, as ship after ship was driven in by the same warning of danger, which at the time ns a mystery to them. It was evidently a very pressing one, for within the ten days five Australian and three African transports lay sic anchor beside them. This long and anxious wait was ended by an order to put to sea on independent course, and make for the port where the Willochra was to receive her gun—for up to this time she was unarmed. This port was made 'with alarm, and, her gun mounted, the transport turned her nose towards England. Three days she made without interference, and then received a hurry call to turn and proceed at nil speed back to the port in which she had already been hung up for ten days. The ship received over the wireless a full description of the raider that was out, and of' special submarine, activity over the course the transport was to have pursued. Again this port became the rendezvous of transport after transport, hurriedly intercepted by the wireless, until at the end of this third week of hiding there were 50,000 troops in that port. The composition of thp battle fleet lying there had changed. The litittleship had sailed, but a fine French cruiser had replaced her, and there were more armed merchantmen. While idling there they heard of the sinking by submarine attack of several ships lying in a certain harbor and the shelling of the town's forts.

Finally the Willochra was sent out with four other transports under escort of an armed cruiser, which accompanied them the whole way. They proceeded, Dr. Bedford says, iike drunken ships, making a truly astonishing wake, for the bewilderment of any lurking periscope. The first point in the deadly game with the submarine is to obscnri. ~your destination. Once he has succeeded in this, he sinks, makes for a spot commanding your course, and there lies in wait for his prey to pass. For several days the Willochra continued to zig-zag over face of the waters, and then dark smudges of smoke on the horizon grew with inconceivable rapidity into the long racing forms of seven destroy-' ers swinging down upon them at an even 45 knots. They were a British unit sent to escort the troopships, although the latter were still three days from their filial port, and on the last day out 11 more destroyers appeared and formed a girdle round them, while a mine-sweeper' slowly v sc-archod the sea ahead of them. "We\£ound," said the profeSßor, "that (the port of destination) had been practically blockaded by submarines for several weeks, and v. think we were the 'first ship to break the blockade. After we got in we found that the Corinthic had been lying there for three weeks waiting to get out. wit.i several hundreds of passengers aboard She did not get out, I believe, until two weeks later."

Dr. Bedford spoke in terms of warm' est admiration of the ship's officers. "1 think," he said, "that" the officers on these troopships deserve the greatest ■praise and gratitude. With thorn it is not a case of one supreme and final moment of suspense, but of weeks and days, whose every hour keeps the nerves astrain. Apart from the constant menace of the submarine, there is the anxiety of running at night, perhaps through thick weather, without a light [showing, and with the foghorn silent. 1 noticed that towards the end every officer was haggard with the strain, i.o learned gradually during the long voyage that a number of submarines had escaped from the Mediterranean, and as the news was sent out shipsjn all directions had sought port at full speed."— Dunedin Star.