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NEW
ZEALAND had long had a close acquaintance
with the Royal Navy. After colonisation
began, naval vessels, the
Acheron and the Pandora, had surveyed the coast. Naval
vessels had cooperated in the conduct of the Maori Wars, and New
Zealand had been visited periodically by British naval vessels, for the
Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy watched over both Australia and
New Zealand. But it was not until 1913 that this country was given
permanent local naval protection, though it had always relied on the
general strength of the British Navy, and still relies on that power.
The Singapore Naval Base, to which New Zealand contributed £,
1,000,000, is of prime importance to the Dominion, and
effectively demonstrates how our defence is bound
up with
the safety of the whole Empire. The real
defence of
New Zealand is naval.
The
Naval Defence Act, 1913, provided for a New Zealand Naval Force and
Royal Naval Reserve. For some years before New Zealand had made a
direct subsidy of £ 100,000 annually to the Royal Navy, and in 1909
had contributed the battle cruiser
New
Zealand
to the
British fleet. H.M.S. Philomel reached New Zealand in July 1914
to serve as the nucleus of the projected Division of the Royal Navy.
On board this ship began the training of locally recruited boys which
has remained an important
feature of naval activity in the Dominion. A section of the
1913 Act provided that control of any ships in the New Zealand
Division passed to the British Admiralty
immediately war broke out. This
effectively postponed the development of the local Naval
Force.
In
1920 the light cruiser Chatham came to the New Zealand station,
and the Philomel was commissioned as a training ship. In 1920
also the sloops Laburnum and Veronica were sent to New
Zealand waters, but these ships remained under the direct command of
the Admiralty for service in the Pacific. In 1924 the
Dunedin
replaced the
Chatham,
and
the next year the Diomede sailed
for
New Zealand as a second cruiser on the station.
In
1936 the two cruisers were replaced by the newer and heavier
Achilles and Leander. The two sloops had also been
replaced. Trawlers and a tanker have been added to the Division, which
is based on an efficient naval dockyard at Auckland
The quality of the New
Zealanders serving with the Division was fully tested in the historic
action against the Graf Spee; in this the Achilles,
which had passed into the control of the British Admiralty at the
outbreak of war, fought with the same doggedness and brilliance as the
Exeter
and the
Ajax.
Their country was proud of
the magnificent conduct of our men in this triumph of British naval
tactics. The action of the New Zealand defensively armed merchant ship
Otaki in the 1914-18 War in fighting the armed raider Moewe
and making a gallant showing with her single 4.7 inch gun was a
foretaste of this heroic spirit. For this action the captain of the
Otaki, A. Bisset Smith, received one of the only two V.C.’s in the
War awarded to merchant seamen.
The German pocket-battleship 'Admiral Graf Spee' scuttled by her
captain after the naval battle in which New Zealands 'Achilles' took
an active part.
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A Naval Guard of Honour
at Wellington on Anzac day 1931
A monument in the cemetery at
Russell, Bay of Islands, to
British sailors of H.M.S. 'Hazard' killed at Kororareka in the 'War in
the North' in 1845
H.M.S. 'New Zealand' which was
presented to the British fleet in 1909 by the Government and the
people of New Zealand.
Men of the 'Achilles' at
breakfast when they visited Wellington in 1940.
A troop transport ship in
New Zealand waters. The Royal Navy has the responsibility of conveying
our transports overseas.
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