Late January Achilles prepared for an extended New Zealand cruise taking in Wellington. 2 weeks at Trentham Military Camp for training.
March 1 left Wellington headed for Cook Strait to enter Tory Channel between Arapawa Island and Lucky Point. Queen Charlotte Sound and cruised quietly north to Ship Cove, where Captain Cook's monument marks one of his landings. Volunteers cleaned and repainted the structure while others lowered boats and fished. Alongside Picton Wharf Saturday with spotless decks and paintwork glistening. Dance at Town Hall with Achilles marine band playing. Hauraki Gulf for exercises - then a weekend in Auckland.
March 24-April 5 Clyde Quay Wellington. Taranaki Bight and rendezvoused with Australia's Canberra and Sydney engaged in mock battle.
June 12-August Auckland. Departed with all sorts of tinned goodies to leave in stores on unpopulated atolls and small islands in case of 'strandings' within New Zealand's protectorate. Sunday Island left 5 men living there fresh and canned food, books, timber and other building materials. Friendly Islands anchored off Tonga's capital Nukualofa and welcomed Queen Salote aboard with full ceremony. Falcon Island 3 hours steaming from Nukualofa. Navigator's Almanac: first sighted as a reef in 1865 being 1 1/4 miles in length and 153 feet high in 1885, awash in early 1894, 3 miles long and 50 ft high after an eruption in 1894 before disappearing completely in 1895. A low reef appeared 1918 and another eruption in 1927. 1928 smoking and steaming and 1930 its height recorded as 475 ft 1.2 miles long. June 20 Achilles recorded for posterity it to be 85 ft high and one mile long. 520 miles to Apia and secured to a huge buoy on the seawind side of a submerged reef. Remains of several cruisers lost in 1889 hurricane. 90 miles east to Pago Pago on Tutuila - a US Navy town.
Nassau Island to offload stores and onto Danger Island in the Tokelaus, Manahiki, Rakahanga and Penrhyn Island.
July 2 Navy Office Wellington ordered continuous listening watch on Amelia Earhart's radio frequency after American monitoring stations received a message from the Lockheed in morse 'circling, cannot see island, fuel running low'.
Through Tokelaus, Line and Howland Islands, watch listened but not a signal from Amelia. Starbuck and Malden Islands, stopped at Christmas Island to entertain the local chief on board. US planes still assisting American 3rd Fleet in its search for Amelia Earhart and navigator Lt Cmdr Fred Noonan.
July 9 arrived Fanning Island 0900, anchored and boats sent ashore to bring the cable-station staff aft for a Commodore's at-home on the awning-shaded quarter-deck.
That afternoon the watch keeper logged the customary calls to Amelia Earhart and his hair stood on end. Distinct from burst of atmospherics he heard a string of evenly spaced longs and then more electrical storm interference and over-powering US coast stations blotting out the faint signals. Commodore's guests went ashore earlier than arranged and Achilles sailed at 18.30 to search in strong seas making night-watch miserable. Weak transmissions never heard again.
July 13 Oahu Hawaii. Clear lower deck for entering harbour - Achilles correctly dressed to enter harbour with band playing British Navy traditionals. Docked at No 2 pier. Battleships of the Tennessee class lay side by side anchored off Ford Island. Battleship Row had 7 or 8 of the 30,000 ton giants, cruisers Astoria, Augusta, Raleigh, Honolulu, Phoenix and others lying in dock or alongside the shipyard, hid from view a cluster of submarines and lesser vessels. 30 or more destroyers lay across the bay from Pearl City.
July 27 Sailed 80 miles to Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii Island where Captain James Cook met his death 157 years ago. Anchored 0630 and cleaned and repainted the memorial obelisk, photographed our Commodore and Captain standing either side and departed south to drop off mail and stores at Fanning Island. After dard speed was increased until we had worked up to 30 knots and this was maintained until we arrived at Canton some 1700 miles to the SW. It consisted of a flat atoll some four miles wide and eight miles long with a single narrow break in the reef about 200 yards acrosss, full of coral heads just inside the entrance. Three coconut palms in a very battered state and several million land crabs were the only sign of life and the highest point above sea level was about 3 metres. The water outside the reef was too deep for anchoring and Achilles had to hold her position by steaming and nosing up to the reef carefully. The entrance was made wider by blasting and even then the only way the motor cutter could enter the lagoon was at slack water. Eventually this was accomplished, a mast manufactured and raised. Without ceremony the Union Jack was hoistered and Canton Island became a British possession. A spa and canvas shelter for the shore party and supplies. Being 2 degrees south of the equator everything had to be protected from the sun. Water had to be humped ashore in 30 gallon casks some 30 or 40 sufficient to last the shore party until they were relieved. Also enough explosives so the shore party could continue to widen the entrance. We left about two days after first arriving leaving the shore party to make friends with the land crabs. Several days later the USS Itaska arrived. Kept a double banked watch on 500khz another frequency used by Amelia Earhart.
August 6 Hull Island. Achilles replaced the mast and British flag erected in 1889 with appropriate ceremony. 300 miles south to Nukunono an atoll in the Tokelaus. Flagpole in good condition, left a couple of new flags. Fiji - photographed Fijian traffic cops, Government House guards, firewalkers and the Military Band. Played and beat Fiji's rugby XV, hired pushbikes and finished in the Club Hotel drinking beer and slings before attending a dance for Achilles.
August 26 arrived Auckland. Achilles concluded a memorable voyage through the past, cleaning, repainting and replacing neglected monuments along trails marked by Captains Cook, Edwards and Wilkes, from Cook's last New Zealand anchorage at Ship Cove Queen Charlotte Sound before he sailed through the Pacific to meet his fate at Karakakooa, through the Kermadec, Samoan, Cook, Line and Hawaiian Groups on the way north: the Phoenix, Tokelau and Fiji Groups on the return south.
Eden Park record crowd of 58,000 Springboks beat New Zealand's 1937 All Blacks 17-6.
December 25 Achilles celebrated Christmas in Auckland. Her siren silent but not her wardroom or messdecks, dancing in Queen Street in front of an illuminated GPO many white caps bearing Achilles tallies.
