WAR AT SEA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1939, Page 7

WAR AT SEA

NEW ZEALAND’S NAVAL CONTRIBUTION MINISTER’S SURVEY SHIPS & SHORE ORGANISATION. WORK OF CRUISERS & SMALT. CRAFT. WELLINGTON. This Day. An outline ol New Zealand’s war effort from a. naval point of . view was given by Ihe Alinisli'r of Defence in a broadcast address hist night. Air Jones said Ilia! ships of lite New Zealand Squadron were inarmed by about 60 per eent of New Zealand ratings and about 10 jter cent of ratings lent from the Royal One contribution which New Zealand was making to the seagoing side of naval defence was the- provision of an armed merchant cruiser, and the Monowai. well known as a ship of the Union Steam Ship Company, was now at the naval base being armed and filled out. NECESSARY SECRECY. After stating that there was much information which must continue to be kept secret. Mi' Jones said that in August last there were on the New Zealand station the two cruisers. Leander and Achilles, of the New Zealand naval forces, and two escort vessels, Leith and Wellington, and the surveying ship Endeavour, belonging to the Imperial Navy. During the latter days of August the Achilles, at the request of the Government of the United Kingdom, was dispatched for service, first in the eastern Pacific, and later in the South Atlantic, with the result, all knew, that she had taken part in the first cruiser engagement of the war. The Imperial ships Leith. Wellington and Endeavour, were also sent at the request of the Admiralty to serve on other stations, leaving the Leander, the flagship of the New Zealand Squadron, to operate in the waters surrounding New Zealand. Shortly before the outbreak of war the Leander left Auckland to convey the first reinforcements to Pacific island garrisons, and since her return from that duty she had been employed patrolling and searching for raiders or their bases around the coasts of the Dominion. i Continued on page 5 )