Navy Today May 09 | Issue 143 - Royal New Zealand Navy

INTERNATIONAL
anchor, for the first time we saw him smile!”
The two ships made a combined NZ team to
challenge other nations in Soccer and Sampan
Racing. “The Sampans were in fact big
whalers with inefficient narrow oars – and the
racing was held at the Olympic Sailing Venue.
In the end we came third after the Chinese
and Indians!”
Sailors from both ships also attended AN-
ZAC Day commemorations in Qingdao, Beijing
and (later) Hong Kong. “We had a combined
ANZAC service with HMA Ships Success and
Pirie; we started with a naval service on the
jetty at 0430 (sunrise is very early here). Each
nation had a Chaplain to officiate and our Maori
A celebration banner at Qingdao
Cultural Group performed during the service. In
this port, so close to waters rich in naval history,
the service was meaningful and moving.”
Following the Fleet Review in Qingdao, our
An impressive
array of ships:
Chinese destroyer SHENYANG, berthed
ahead of the Russian cruiser VARYAG
HMNZS TE MANA and HMNZS Endeavour are
currently in East Asian waters on a three month
deployment to North East Asia, South East Asia
and Australia. Their first commitment was to
represent New Zealand at the Chinese Navy’s
60th Anniversary Fleet Review at Quingdao,
where our ships joined with those of 13 other
ships are visiting Hong Kong before a busy
programme of regional exercises in the South
China Sea and off Malaysia. These exercises
will provide the ships with prime training environment.
The deployment will include visits
to Singapore, Port Klang in Malaysia, Darwin
and Townsville. The two ships are due back in
Auckland on 4 July.
Brazilian LST GARCIA D’A VILA
Australia
Bangladesh
Brazil
Canada
France
India
Mexico
Pakistan
South Korea
HMAS SUCCESS
HMAS PIRIE
OSMAN
GARCIA D'A VILA
HMCS PROTECTEUR
VENDEMIAIRE
INS MUMBAI
INS RANVIR
CUAUHTEMOC
PNS BADR, PNS NASR
ROKS DOKDO
ROKS KANG GAN CHAN
Russia VARYAG, M6-99
Singapore
RSS FORMIDABLE
navies to commemorate the founding of the
modern Chinese Navy.
The CO of Te Mana, CDR Blair Gerritsen said,
VARYAG (Russia)
ROK SHIP DOKDO
Thailand
United States
HTMS TAKSIN
HTMS BANGPAKONG
USS FITZGERALD
“Everyone on board both Te Mana and Endeavour
was eagerly anticipating the opportunity
to visit China, especially as the visit offered us
the chance to mix with the large number of
navies that had ships attending the Chinese
Fleet Review.”
Once in Chinese waters the Kiwi sailors found
the weather to be “freezing” and the language
barrier high. “We were rugged up to keep warm
during those cold (11ºC) Qingdao days.”
Aboard Endeavour they commented:
“Our PLA(N) Liaision Officer has been fantastic
and like every good PLA(N) English translator,
very stressed about us getting it exactly right.
Happily we anchored in the correct position,
Aboard ENDEAVOUR with their PLA(Navy)
Liaison officer (l to r): ASCS Claude Wehi,
AHSO Sally Solomon, LT Qu Shi Gang, LT
Aston Talbot & SLT Matt Stephens
pointing the right way, with the right flags up and
did the right things…so after 5 days of his liaison
support and spending overnight with us at
The Indian destroyer RANVIR berthed astern of ENDEAVOUR
10 NT143MAY09 WWW.NAVY.MIL.NZ
WWW.NAVY.MIL.NZ NT143MAY09 11