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WINONA REVISITED 14. Our Ship of the Month No. 207, featured in the November issue, was the p a s senger steamer WINONA, which was built in 1902 at Port Stanley, served a few brief years on Lake Erie's north shore and in the W a l l a c e b u r g area, and then headed northw ard , running for many years for the Purvis interests in the N ort h Ch ann el of Lake Huron. Several me mb er s have come forward with a d d i t i o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n to assist us in respect of the early years of WINONA. Thanks to the efforts of George Ayoub, Alan Ma n n and Gordon Shaw, we are able to provide a detai l e d followup art icle w h i c h will clear up some of the m y s teries c o n c e r n i n g WINONA. U n fortunately, a l t h o u g h we had planned to run the m a t erial in this issue, we do not have su ffi cient space available to do so, and a c c o r d i n g l y it will have to wait a bit before we can present it in the ma n n e r it deserves. Please wa tch for more about WI N O N A in an u p c o m i n g issue. * * * * * MORE ABOUT MEAFORD In our De ce mb er issue, we featu red as Ship of the M onth No. 208, the Farrar T r a n s p o r t a t i o n C o m p a n y Ltd. steam canaller M E A F O R D (I). We very muc h enjoyed puttin g together our hist o r y of this l i t t l e - k n o w n vessel, and we are pleased that our me mbe rs received it well. One of the i n t e r e s t i n g bits of i n f o r m a t i o n c oncerning M E A F O R D is the report that we qu ote d from Page 413 of "Canadian Rail w a y and Ma r i n e World", issue of October, 1917, reg a r d i n g the steamer sinking an e nemy sub marine by gunfire off the coast of Sicily on June 12, 1917. One of our learned members, John Wi lter d i n g , of Algoma, Wisconsin, who has done extensive researc h into such matters, has writ t e n to dispute the C . R. & M . W. report. Ha vin g r e v i e w e d many inform a t i v e sources, John reports that the only enemy submarine sunk on June 12, 1917, was UC-66, a small m i n e - l a y i n g submarine built in 1916 by Blohm & Voss. She o p e rated for a while in the M e d i t e r r a n e a n there using the A u s t r o - H u n g a r i a n number 66. D e parting the Mediterranean, she was sunk off Cornw a l l ' s Lizard Point, June 12, 1917, by depth charges from from H . M . S. SEA KING. T wenty-two lives were lost. How does this match the C a n a d i a n press report? We cannot say. Perhaps, however, the d epth charges forced UC-66 to surface, thus giving M E A F O R D a chance to use her armament. But how could the press report have c o n fused The Lizard for the coast of Sicily? John has, however, found another report w hich states that the steamer MEAFORD was a t t a c k e d off the entrance to the English Chan n e l by a German Uboat, and the freighter chased off her a t t a c k e r by gunfire. The date of the occurre nce was given as May 27, 1917. So now we have a m y s t e r y where we thought we had fact. P u z zling indeed... One my st e r y about M E A F O R D has, however, been solved. In our feature, we spent rather a lot of space s peculating about the stack colours that were carried by the two Farrar T r a n s p o r t a t i o n C o m p a n y steamers, M E A F O R D and C O L LINGWOOD. We h a p p e n e d r e c ently to be read i n g our 1913 Lynn's D i r e c t o r y ("American and Canadian Great Lakes and Ocean A p p o i n t m e n t s and Marine Directory"), wh en we came across a section e n t itled "How to Know the Ships by Their Fun nels on the Great Lakes". This is a listing of the major lake fleets with a description of their stack colours. Ac c o r d i n g to E. J. Lynn, the Farrar T r a n s p o r t a t i o n "Black top, red band, black and red bottom". stack colours were: So there it is at last. We will lose no more sleep in the wee small hours by lying awake and fretting over the colour of M E AFORD's stack. Thank you, Mr. Lynn! * * * * *