Iorinda’S’ Return
p. 46 · Read in the full issue
Memories of How She Took 146 From BSI In 1942
From Our Own Correspondent
. Honiara. Nov. 11.
THE last passenger ship out of the Solomons in 1942, before the Jap anese landed three weeks later, BP’s veteran “Morinda” tied up at Kukum dock, Guadalcanal, on October 17, 1948, on her first post-war visit.
Five of the ship’s personnel, then on board, recalled the tense days of Feb ruary, 1942, when “Morinda” rushed from Sydney to Tulagi to cram 146 evacuees (and eight stowaways) on to her decks.
In Tulagi Harbour she met with the attentions of a Jap bomber, of luckily poor marksmanship, and successfully hid down-coast before loading her passengers at night.
Normally engaged on the New Hebrides run, Morinda is expected to include the Solomons in her itinerary every three months, when she will cut out Lord Howe and Norfolk, with a back loading of copra diverted to the Australian market by permission of the British Ministry of Food, to make her run economically pos sible.
This trip, she loaded 600 tons of copra at Kukum and Yandina. As well, she took 61 tons of scrap brass, mainly shell cases, collected under contract for the Government Trade Scheme from Hell’s Point, huge wartime ammo dump at Lunga, which blew up (by mistake) in 1943. This brass will fetch £9l a ton in Australia.