Editorial: Good to use military in time of need

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

A lot has been written about the earthquake and the way our Navy and other navies stepped in to ferry stranded tourists and locals out of Kaikoura.

Some people have criticised it, but I believe it was the right thing to do. It was good to see our Navy serving the people like this. Also, it was great that other navies, here for our Navy's 75th anniversary, could step in like this.

After all, these are the type of operations that servicemen and women train for.

It brought back memories of one of the best stories I have every covered as a journalist, where the military also played a big role in a rescue effort. It was 25 years ago - August 25, 1991 - that the Greek cruise ship, the Oceanos, sank off the Transkei coast of South Africa. There were nearly 600 passengers on board and the sea was quite treacherous in a stretch of water that is home to more than 230 wrecks.

I was working as a journalist for a regional newspaper in East London, South Africa, called The Daily Dispatch. Those were the days before cellphones, but when the call came through in the early hours of the morning, a photographer, another journalist and I hopped in a car and made our way up to a pretty rugged part of the country.

What unfolded was simply remarkable. The military was running the rescue operation and had set up camp at a local resort and golf course. The ship, which at that stage had not sunk, was quite a distance off the coast and we knew we had to get a good shot for the front page of the paper.

Photographer Gary Horlor and I eventually went up on one of the last rescue missions and Gary managed to get a photo of the listing ship half an hour before it sank. Everyone was rescued and we were in the helicopter when the last person was winched to safety. It was, quite fittingly, the ship's magician.