14 December, 2020, 10:00 pm
Rotoiti room mechanic John Paulsen of Christchurch is taken to the CWM Hospital for observation. Picture: FILE
In July 1963 the Royal New Zealand Navy’s frigate Rotoiti made an all-night dash to Suva to land one of the ship’s company. The navy personnel had been taken ill with suspected appendicitis.
Steaming at 16 knots, the Rotoiti arrived in Suva at 10.45am — six hours ahead of her scheduled time of arrival and was met at the Kings Wharf by an ambulance.
The incident was reported by The Fiji Times on Monday July 1, 1963.
The sick rating, John Paulsen, an 18-year-old engine room mechanic of Christchurch, was taken to the CWM Hospital and detained for observation.
Rotoiti, which was on a training and flag-showing cruise, had come from Sigave in the Horne Islands before calling to port in Suva.
She had left Auckland on June 11 that year and during her cruise had visited Raoul Island, Tonga, Western Samoa, the Tokelau Islands and Wallis Island. She then later left Suva on Saturday July 6 for Auckland.
A loch class frigate, Rotoiti was built for the Royal Navy and launched as HMS Loch Katrine in 1944.
According to the report, the frigate was on war service in the Atlantic from December 1944 and the following year was later transferred to the East Indies Station being placed in reserve in July 1948.
In June 1949 with five other frigates, she was bought by the New Zealand Government and renamed Rotoiti, after a New Zealand lake.
Rotoiti completed two tours of duty off the Korean Coast during the Korean War in 1950 to 1951, forming part of New Zealand’s contribution to the United Nations naval forces.
During the first operation — from October 1950 to November 1951 — she twice landed raiding parties, and in the second of these, an able-seaman was killed by enemy machine-gun fire.
He was the Royal New Zealand Navy’s only operational casualty of the Korean War.
The frigate had begun her return trip to New Zealand after her first operation when she had a brush with pirates.
Rotoiti had intercepted a distress signal from a British ship which had been captured by pirates off the mouth of the Yangtze River.
Rotoiti arrived on the scene in time to thwart the pirates a safe passage back to their lair in return for the safety of their European prisoners.
The ship made a third visit to the Far East in 1958 to 1959 when she served with the Far East Fleet as New Zealand’s contribution to the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve.
After a refit, she made a fourth visit to the Far East from which she returned, after a year’s service in March 1961.
Her role then was that of a training ship for junior ratings, but in 1961 she had on three occasions departed from the role to act as a weather observation ship in the Southern Ocean for Operations Deep freeze.
With a displacement of 1435 tonnes, Rotoiti was 30ft in length and possessed one four-inch gun, two 40mm anti-aircraft guns and six anti-submarine mortars. Sunday June 23 1963 was a big day in the life of her commander.
Before then he was Lieutenant-Commander D J Cheney.
He had transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy from the Royal Navy in 1951. After qualifying as a signal sub-specialist in 1954, he served as signal officer of HMS Defender and training officer of the Signal School in Devonport joining HMNZS Royalist as signal officer on her commissioning in the UK.
He had subsequently served as First Lieutenant of HMNZS Pukaki in 1957 to 1958, director of Naval Signal Communications and Flag, Lieutenant Commander to the New Zealand Naval Board from 1958 to 1961 and was First Lieutenant of HMNZS Royalist 1961 to 1962 before he took command of HMNZS Rotoiti on November 30 1962.
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