Transparency of TSS MONOWAI moored in Wellington Harbour, New Zealand

Datelate 1950s

Object number00046614

NamePhotographic slide

MediumCellulose acetate slide, colour

DimensionsOverall: 50 x 50 x 1 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Peter Bleeck

Terms

HistoryLIBERTAD and DEWARUTJI are naval sail training ships and both represented their countries during Australia's 1970 celebrations of James Cook's landing in Botany Bay in 1770. The MONOWAI was a cruise ship operated by the Union Steamship Co of New Zealand from 1930 to 1960 and was a common sight in Sydney. Originally built in 1924 as the RAZMAK for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the ship was sold to NZ in 1930 and renamed MONOWAI. Her routes included Wellington to Vancouver via Cook Islands, American Samoa, Tahiti, Honolulu and San Francisco until 1932; Wellington to Sydney and Melbourne; coastal New Zealand trips; South Sea island winter cruises; and as a replacement on the New Zealand to USA and Canada route when other ships were in refit. MONOWAI was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1939 and refitted as an armed merchant cruiser for the duration of World War II. In 1943 the ship was sent to England and converted into an assault landing-ship and took part in the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944. 1945 saw the ship returning troops and Soviet POWs and then Changi prisoners. The ship arrived in Sydney in 1946, was released from war service and underwent refit at Mort's Dock. MONOWAI resumed her Trans-Tasman run in 1948 and served until 1960. Shaw, Savill & Albion Line operated the SOUTHERN CROSS from 1955 on the Europe to Australia and New Zealand until 1971. The route took the ship and its primarily immigrant passengers from Southampton to Australia via Cape Town, thence to New Zealand and across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and back to Southampton. The advent of aircraft travel spelled the end of the SOUTHERN CROSS's long journeys and the ship spent a few years on the Liverpool to Mediterranean run before being sold in 1973. Four names changes later, the ship was sold for scrap in 2004. This Manly ferry was built in Scotland in 1928 with its sister-ship DEE WHY - both named after northern Sydney beaches. Both steamed under their own power to Sydney. The CURL CURL served on the Manly to Sydney run from 1929 to 1960 and was sunk off Sydney Heads in 1969.