The Otaki seems to have been intercepted and sunk by the Moewe, the German raider, and her crew were taken prisoner. Her cargo of meat had fortunately reached the Old Country in safety.
The Rotorua, on the other hand, was apparently sunk in the Channel after landing her passengers at Plymouth, and her cargo, including meat consigned to the Home Government from this country, must have been lost with the vessel.
At a time when the demand for cargo-carriers is so great, and when vessels with refrigerating machinery are particularly required by the dominions, these losses necessarily increase the difficulty attributable to the shortage of insulated tonnage that attends the shipment of meat supplies from New Zealand to Great Britain.
One effect which they can hardly fail to have is to enable the people of this dominion to envisage more clearly the sub-marine menace, which so far had touched their interests but lightly.
•(By the N.Z. official War Correspondent): During the past few days I have been in the area of the German retreat, and have witnessed some of the most tragic scenes of the war. The Germans, in their retreat, have destroyed, desecrated, and defiled. From village to village one goes from bad to worse.
I was in Peronne the morning after the German retreat, and made a minute examination, enabling me to say that the calculated destruction by the retreating enemy was diabolical in its thoroughness and vindictiveness.
All houses untouched by shell fire were blown to bits with high explosive, and all the furniture, household goods, and treasures of the late inhabitants were smashed with axes, hammers, and picks.
Even the handles of the instruments of destruction were then themselves destroyed. The town was a scene of empty desolation. The trees of the beautiful avenue were hacked half-way through, and in all the orchards the trees had been sawn down. The fires were still burning to-day.
•Writing to a member of the Southland Times literary staff from France on January 9, Major T. M. Wilkes says:- ``Bishop Cleary is with us, and he is great - always round the lines amongst the men, no matter what is ``coming over''.
He is a real sport, and liked by all. A soldier was killed alongside him the other day, and the Bishop himself was knocked over by the force of the debris thrown up by the 5.9 shell, but was otherwise uninjured.
He tended the dying man, who was unconscious. Many would have finished with the lines after that; but not so the Bishop. He continues to go round, and no amount of ``Bosche persuasion'' puts him off his rounds; in fact, he goes where there is most of that commodity because he seems to think he is most needed there.''
- ODT, 27.3.1917
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