"Viti" Handed Over to New Owners

New Owners

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, April 26.

THE Tasman Steamship Company, a co-operative organisation of New Zealand ex-Servicemen, which has bought the Fiji Government ship “Viti,” will take delivery shortly. Captain L. B.

Lindsay, who will be master, and Mr.

A. E. Goodrich, who will be chief en gineer, are now in Suva.

The company, which has 16 members, already owns the former minesweeper “Wakakura”; and the “Viti,” like the “Wakakura,” will be employed in the Tasman trade. She will be converted into a refrigerated cargo vessel.

“Viti” was launched in Kongkong in November, 1939, but has only occasionally fulfilled her original purpose of an offi cial passenger ship. In April, 1941, she was commissioned as a Naval vessel and as HMS “Viti” she performed notable war service that took her all over the South Pacific. In each of her last two years of war service she sailed more than 40,000 miles.

Lieutenant-Colonel T. A. Doran, for merly a private practitioner at Craill, Pifeshire, and, after 1925, in the Indian Medical Service, has been appointed to the British Colonial Service as a medical officer in Fiji.

. Mr. John C. Woodmansey, of Cairns, has resigned from the Queensland Police Force, and has been appointed an Assis

tant Sub-inspector in the Police Force of Papua-New Guinea. Mr. Woodmansey will take up his new position this month.

Ratu Penaia Gaiiilau, who was an offi cer in the Fiji Military Forces during the war went to England in 1946 to attend a Colonial Administrative Course at Ox ford. He returned to Fiji recently and on April 9, gave an interesting talk over station ZJV Suva of his experiences m the UK. During University vacations Ratu Penaia volunteerd for harvesting and farm work. He developed a profound admiration for the courage of the British people, and their readiness to face all difficulties.