Whangārei Museum registrar Ornthira Khamna with curator Alyce Charlesworth and the Niagara lifeboat. Photo / Heritage NZ
A lifeboat from one of the most storied ships to sail New Zealand waters is about to get a new lease of life thanks to the Whangārei Museum.
The Niagara – known as the “Princess of the Pacific” – was once New Zealand’s flagship liner. It met an untimely end in June 1940 after hitting a German mine and sinking off Bream Head, carrying a cargo of irreplaceable gold bars and ammunition.
A wooden lifeboat – a remnant of the Niagara’s glory days and a survivor of that explosion – now sits under a permanent shelter at Whangārei Museum ready to be restored to its original condition.
Whangārei Museum registrar Ornthira Khamna said: “For many years, the Niagara connected New Zealand to the rest of the world. Now her story provides us with a link to the past”.
“The Niagara lifeboat is an important part of that link.”
The RMS Niagara story starts with her launch in 1912. She was originally billed as “The Titanic of the Pacific” – before the actual Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage.
Her nickname was changed to “Princess of the Pacific” in time for her launch.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga volunteer Jack Kemp, who has researched the ship, said the Niagara delivered on its media hype, having set records for transtasman crossings and earning a reputation for reliability and stability in all weathers.
Her prestige took a hit when an outbreak of Spanish flu emerged during a voyage from Vancouver to Auckland in October 1918.
By the time the ship docked at Auckland, she was firmly in the grip of the virus which had been misdiagnosed as regular influenza by doctors on board – though suspicions about the virus being Spanish flu persisted.
Minister of Health George Russell advised the Governor-General that Spanish flu was not a notifiable disease and that he therefore could not quarantine the Niagara.
“Russell made the call to give clearance to disembark the ship,” Kemp said.
“Immediately 28 patients were transferred to Auckland City Hospital, with a further nine cases over the next week.
“As a result, 160 of the hospital’s 180 nurses were infected, and two died. The Spanish flu had well and truly arrived in New Zealand.”
An Influenza Epidemic Commission established in 1919 investigated the impact the ships Niagara and Makura may have played in bringing the virus to New Zealand.
One witness, Dr Milson of the New Zealand Division of the British Medical Association, said the Niagara was the cause of the epidemic in New Zealand.
However, an earlier outbreak at Auckland’s Narrow Neck military camp is where the first Spanish flu case was reported on September 30.
Nevertheless, the Commission’s interim report suggested that the Niagara’s arrival with Spanish flu cases onboard was a “substantial factor” in its spread.
“Over the next two decades the Niagara continued to ply its pan-Pacific trade linking Auckland with Sydney, Canada, Suva and Honolulu – largely without drama,” Kemp said.
Except in 1937, when a case of Chinese fireworks exploded as 300 cases were being loaded into the hold in Sydney. Dock workers were blown through the air – five were injured and one later died.
Kemp said in June 1940, the German raider Orion laid a field of more than 220 contact mines across the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf - one of which was struck by the Niagara.
Crew and passengers watched her stern rise clear of the water then diving to her final resting place on the edge of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.
Passenger Hazel Royd recorded the sight: “Even the men caught their breath as, like a great shadow in the night, she vanished from view”.
Everyone on board was safely evacuated to lifeboats, though there were initial fears for the ship’s cat Aussie, who refused to leave.
According to the New Zealand Maritime Museum, Aussie survived by clinging to a water tank which eventually washed up on the beach at Hora Hora.
“The unique cargo that went down with the ship sent chills throughout senior military and Government officials in Wellington, however,” Kemp said.
“Five hundred and ninety gold bars from South Africa – a payment from the United Kingdom to the United States for munitions – with half of New Zealand’s stock of small arms ammunition en route to Britain via Canada now lay at the bottom of the ocean.”
Losing a shipload of ammo during wartime was a big enough problem but a cargo of gold bars for war payments was a next-level disaster.
The Bank of England’s reward – £27,000 plus 2.5% of any gold recovered – showed how eager authorities were to recover the treasure.
The Claymore - a rusting old tub moored in Auckland Harbour and one of the few ships available during wartime - eventually found the Niagara by dragging her anchor over the sea bed.
“An imprecise method which also located two other mines laid by the Orion. Fortunately the Claymore avoided being sunk, though the most hair-raising moment came when the diving chamber, complete with diver inside, became fouled with the anchor wire of one of the mines,” Kemp said.
On February 2, 1941, the wreck of the Niagara was found and salvage work began.
The team used the ship’s grab to tear open a side of the hull and, with a man in the diving bell guiding the grab via telephone line, eventually exposed the Niagara’s strong room.
“In October the team blasted open the strong room door using explosives, and the first two gold bars were recovered on October 13. By December 8, the salvage ended with 555 of the gold bars safely recovered.”
In 1953 the job was almost completed when a second salvage team managed to retrieve 30 of the 35 remaining gold bars. Five bars still remain unaccounted for to this day.
Tonnes of oil are still believed to remain on the wreck, leading some to label the ship a potential ticking environmental time-bomb.