Bsip Disaster

In Memory Of

The service for the dedication of the light and the memorial tablet was read alternately by Bishop Hill and Bishop Stuyvenberg. Pastor Harrison read the lesson.

The MV Melanesian was a 118-ft., 240-ton steel vessel, built in Hongkong for the Protectorate Government and was less than two years old when she disappeared. She had been a 100 per cent. A 1 classification at Lloyds three months before her last voyage.

S|>e left Sglufou on July 9, 1958, for Sikaiana, and reported her position at 9 p.m. on the following day as 25 miles west of Sikaiana, and her ex pected time of arrival there as 1 p.m. that day. This was the last message received.

The ship was due to return to Sulufou on July 12, and when she did not return, four Government ships were sent to look for her.

Fifteen other ships, both Govern ment and privately owned, and two Qantas DC3 aircraft later joined in the search.

The first wreckage was sighted by Lever's Cape Torrens and the Catholic Mission's Salve Regina eight days after contact with the Melanesian had been lost. Further small pieces of wreckage were picked up during the next few days off the east coast of Malaita.

All wreckage appeared to have come up from a great depth. On July 20, the Cape Torrens recovered the body of the bosun, David Daewo, from the sea. The bodies of the other 63 people on board were never found.

In a simple and moving service con ducted jointly by the Melanesian Mis sion, the Catholic Church and the Seventh Day Adventist Mission at the Rua Talatoa Light, BSIP, on March 15, the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir David Trench, un veiled a tablet in memory of 64 people who died when the MV Melanesian foundered in unknown cir cumstances in July, 1958.

The light, erected by public sub scription, is mounted on a 60-ft. white painted steel lattice-work tower.

It is on the northern coast of Rua Talatoa Island, looking towards the dangerous reefs at Rua Sura, and across to the west coast of Malaita, where many passengers joined the Melanesian for her last voyage on which all on board were lost.

The Bishop of Melanesia, the Right Rev. A. T. Hill, the Catholic Bishop of the South Solomons, the Most Rev. D.

Stuyvenberg, and Pastor R. A. Harri son, of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, conducted the service.

At 3 p.m., the High Commissioner, the Acting Chief Secretary, Mr. R.

Davies, and the Director of Medical Services Dr. J. D. MacGregor came ashore from the R.C.S. Coral Queen and walked to a small leaf structure in front of the memorial tablet, at the base of the light. The tablet was veiled with the Protectorate Marine Ensign.