After steaming about 12 hours turned in our tracks straight back to Wellington. (Explanation: Captain, on opening ‘sealed orders’ found he had further to go than he expected). Took aboard more water and coal and set out again without berthing. Having two Wednesdays this week to account for day gained in sailing East. Have not been sick at all, though many are very ill. Ship is gradually settling down into working routine. Distance glimpse of the Chatham Islands this morning about twenty miles to northward. Yesterday the ship was followed by Gannets and young albatrosses; but today they have given way to Moly-Hawks. Glimpsed school of porpoises. Ship is not fast, about 12 knots, drawing about 30 feet and rides the seas steadily. Nothing visible but a waste of rolling water, but it has a grandeur of its own and gives a feeling of freedom. Great fun when we do physical jerks on the moving deck. The Artillery won the toss for the few cabins available. I am in a four berth one.
[Note – Lincoln’s typescript starts on “Wednesday, April 5th 1917, 2nd day out”. This appears to be in error – it should be Wednesday April 4th 1917. For the voyage, the typescript then records “days out” and the occasional day name, rather than full dates, with “Monday 7th day” coming soon after, (this would have been Monday 9 April 1917). Future blog entries we will follow from 100 years to the correct date (which is, in any case, corrected later in the typescript, when he disembarks in England).]
(This post provides background information on the sailing of the SS Corinthic from Wellington Harbour and is written by the blog editor, John Hutton).
The 23rd Reinforcements, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, departed New Zealand on two troopships: Ruapehu (14 March 1917) and Corinthic (2 April 1917). The ships were, respectively, the 79th and 80th troop ships to depart from New Zealand during World War One, out of 111 sailings.
The Corinthic carried the “left wing” of the reinforcements and was given the designation His Majesty’s New Zealand Transport (HMNZT) 80.
Lincoln Lee’s wartime account apparently commences on “Wednesday 5 April 1917″, which he describes as the ‘second day out’ from New Zealand. This appears to be an error, and the date should have been Wednesday 4 April 1917”.
The following two photographs are from Lincoln’s private collection, held by his descendants. The first is a blurred shot of the SS Corinthic and departing troops, taken from the wharf in Wellington. Lincoln’s location in the crowd is marked with a “X” on the original photograph. The second photograph is taken from Kelburn near the cable car, looking down on Wellington Harbour. An “X” appears to mark the location of the troop ship. We might assume that Lincoln’s first wife, Mary Catherine Lee, to whom he wrote his diary-like letters which this blog reproduces, was the photographer.
Departure of troopship SS Corinthic (HMNZT 80), 2 April 1917View from Kelburn, Wellington, of SS Corinthic in Wellington Harbour, 2 April 1917
The next two images are sourcedfrom websites dedicated to maritime matters:
“New Zealanders leaving to fight for their country … April 3”“A rare colour White Star postcard of the SS Corinthic”
Warwick St. George Ruxton Wilson, of Scotch and Irish ancestry, who when he died suddenly and painlessly at the age of 77, was head of a well-known Auckland legal firm, was, from school days, my lifetime friend. He and I were A.L. (afterwards Sir Alexander) Herdman’s clerks in Wellington in 1905 and we came to Auckland within a year of one another in 1912 – 1913, where he joined as junior partner of the firm of which he finally became the senior member. He did a lot of motor cycling then, running a branch office in Waiuku, which recalls that after the tragic drowning of his brother Noel, he had promised his mother never to take up yachting. It did not occur to her that motor-cycling was at least as hazardous. Noel’s yacht had capsized at Wellington Heads, leaving him and his two companions clinging to wreckage in a terrific sea which even the Harbour Tug could not face. Watched helplessly by the Pencarrow Lighthouse Keeper, Noel held on for an hour longer than his companions.
In 1916 we both enlisted in the Artillery, going into Featherston Camp in August when he had been married for about one year and I for nine.
I have an old photograph of our Sub-Section showing us both as tough young soldiers. His eldest son, Ian, was born in lodgings near by and after the christening he cooly informed me I had become its Godfather in absentia. Twenty-four years later we evened things up by making him Godfather to our daughter Belinda (by my second wife, the first having died childless). Both Ian and another son were killed as air pilots in the Battle of Britain and a third survived the war.
In the army he was the mainstay of my sanity under conditions more trying to one of my touchy nature than to his calmer and more stoical one. I must often have exasperated him with my grousing but the worst I ever got as a rebuke was “You do go on and on”.
His wife died some years before him, their three surviving children all happily married, so he spent his last years at his club. His chief hobby was golf at week-ends with a few old cronies. After his sudden death, just before dinner at his Club, his doctor ordered the body to be taken to the private hospital which he had patronised. By mistake, it was taken to the General Hospital where Belinda was nursing. She was on duty laying out the dead and did the last offices to Warwick’s body mechanically without studying his features. On looking at the identification card she fell back crying “Oh, it’s my God-father!” A senior doctor took her kindly aside and made her sit down and rest. How did that come about? Who knows? She loved him.
I started this Dedication to my dead friend intending only a short note, but felt that would not do justice to his memory. We hadn’t many tastes in common; perhaps why our friendship never failed. He was “Salt of the Earth”, and his quiet qualities of good humour, integrity and reliability will be remembered by all who ever knew him”.
(Lincoln Lee – likely written mid 1960s)
“An old photograph of our Sub-Section showing us both as tough young soldiers”
Walk March 