BY CRUISER TO THE CHATHAMS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 667, 18 April 1952, Page 6

BY CRUISER TO

THE CHATHAMS

TTHEN the light cruiser /.H.M.N.Z.S. Bellona went on a week’s voyage to the Chatham Islands a few weeks ago, in the course of a cruisé around the New Zealand coast, it had on board Trevor Williams, of NZBS Head Office + Talks Section, and Vernon Butcher, ‘at technician from 3YA, They took with them a tape recorder, and when they returned’ to the mainland they had on tape a_ great deal of material recorded in the ship and ashore at the Chathams. Linked with comments by Mr. Williams, this will be the substance of three documentary

programmes to be heard soon from NZBS stations. The first of these, already complete, goes under the title Battle is Our Business (the motto of the Bellona), and will be heard first from 3YA at 8.26 p.m. on Monday, April 21. Battle is Our Business is an attempt to give a picture in sound of some of the activities aboard a light cruiser of the Royal New Zealand Navy at sea during a peacetime cruise. Listeners will go with Mr. Williams to the bridge to hear the captain conning the ship, de; scend to the engine-room, hear steampressure rising in the boiler-room, visit the shipwright’s department, the radar and the wireless rooms, the galley

and the wardroomwhere at "gin-time" they will hear arrangements made for a diver to go down and clear seaweed which is blocking the sea inlets. On his journey around the ship Mr. Williams has a_ few words with the officers and ratings he meets. He is present (who wouldn’t be?) when the rum ration is pumped from the cask into the tum barrel and, mixed with two parts of water, dealt out to the hands. He has a talk with the chief quartermaster (who is responsible for the boatswain’s calls), and he takes his tape-re-corder to hear the anchor going down, The programme also includes a recording of the ship at gunnery practiceand, for contrast, a picture of a party for orphans given aboard at Dunedin, and _ recorded by 4YA. Mr. Williams — thinks those whe might want

to join the Navy will be especially interested in the second programme, which he has called It’s Your Navy, Too. This is made up mainly of interviews in which people on board the Bellona talk about their specialist jobs. The voice of Captain G. V. M. Dolphin, D.S.O., R.N., commanding officer’of the Witten anit senior officer (afloat) New Zealand, is heard, then Mr. Williams talks with the chaplain, the squadron

education officer, the former Commander (S)-in charge of supply and secre-tariat-who has since left the Royal New Zealand Navy to return to England; and the radar officer, The third programme was recorded at the Chatham Islands, during the two days which the Bellona spent there. The Bellona visited the islands to show the flag, and Mr. Williams says that so far as he knows it was the first visit by a ship of the Royal New Zealand Navy since the sloop Leith-now the Danish research ship Galathea-was there some years before the war. The visit must have been specially welcomed by children on the islands, for Bellona took with her ice cream and sweets as a gift from the Island Territories Department. In honour of the ship’s visit a haangi and a gymkhana were held, with Mr. Williams and his recorder, of course, present. While Bellona was at the Chathams the Port Waikato was also there on one of her regular visits, and listeners will hear a brief description of sheep and wool being loaded and an interview with the master of the ship, Captain J. W. Dickinson. One of the meteorological officers on the Chathams, Ted Cahill, and the island’s only taxi driver, Jack Rodger, are others heard in the ‘programme. Besides sending and receiving telegrams and cables, Mr. Cahill speaks around the islands in the evening by radio-telegraph, just to make sure that all’s well. As for the taxi driver-well, he has the job to himself, certainly, but the islands are probably as well provided with cars as any part of the world. There are about a hundred of them to 506 people-and only 35 miles of roads.