maheno (hospital ship)

Hospital ships

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  The Maheno and Marama were the poster ships of New Zealand's First World War effort. Until 1915 these steamers had carried passengers on the Tasman route. But as casualties mounted at Gallipoli, the government - helped by a massive public fundraising campaign - converted them into state-of-the-art floating hospitals.

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• Page 2 – Background

  What is a hospital ship and where did New Zealand's two ships come from?

• Page 3 – Gallipoli calls

  The terrible casualty rate of the Gallipoli campaign spurred Governor Liverpool to raise funds for New Zealand hospital ships

• Page 4 – Civilians at Gallipoli

  The Maheno arrived in the Mediterranean in time for the Allies’ bloody late August 1915 offensives to find that not much had improved since the April landings

• Page 5 – Life on board

  What was life like aboard a hospital ship? That largely depended on your job, your rank and your gender.

• Page 6 – Later service and legacies

  The Marama missed Gallipoli, reaching the Mediterranean a few weeks after the Allies abandoned the peninsula. The ships’ service pattern would now be dominated by long voyages

• Page 7 – Hospital ships' movements 1915-19

  Movements of the hospital ships Maheno and Marama during the First World War

Merchant marine

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  On 3 September New Zealand honours Merchant Navy Day. Here we explore the little-known but vital role played by the merchant marine during the First World War, when these civilian seafarers often found themselves in the front line of the war at sea.

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• Page 4 - Hospital shipsIn May 1915, as casualties mounted at Gallipoli, the government chartered a hospital ship, the Union Company's 5282-ton trans-Tasman liner