CUNARD SHIPPING

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21225, 23 September 1940, Page 9

CUNARD SHIPPING

SERVICE DURING THE WAR CENTURY OF PROGRESS The Cunard Company has reached I its centenary, and in ordinary times there would have been much celebration. But under present conditions one must content oneself with recalling what the great line has done in past wars to help the national effort, says the Manchester Guardian. In this one it has done much and has lost the Carinthia and the Bosnia, and public attention was focussed on the departure of the • j Queen Mary and the Mauretania to • ; New York and on the secret voyage j of the Queen Elizabeth, with hex | Degauss girdle, last March to that I port. No more can be said in the | meantime about the Cunard’s present . war work. Under the conditions of the mail contract the Government can call cn I the Cunard for natiohal duty in war, and this condition was exercised in 1854, when fourteen Cunard ships were employed in Crimean War service. In the Zulu War, in the Egyptian campaign, in the Russian war scare of 1885. and in both Boer I Wars the line provided transports, storeships, and hospital ships. Gallant Service In 1914 when the European war

broke out the Cunard had its first experience of a conflict where the enemy was active and formidable at sea. It had then the Lusitania, Mauretania, and the new Aguitania at the head of a great fleet of twentyfive ships of altogether 315,988 gross tons. The Germans sank thirteen of them, including the Lusitania, representing nearly half that tonnage The line transported 900,000 soldiers to and from the war. Millions of tons of cargo were safely carried J across the Atlantic. Several of its { ships fought as armed cruisers and [ made sea history, particularly the Carmania by her victory over the j Cap Trafalgar. Activities of the i Cunard that ai*e little known were j the shell factory it established in 1915 which produced 400,000 shells, , and its aeroplane factory, which employed 5000 hands. When this war is ended the Cunard’s story will be found greater and even more gallant than any in its past.