the night of 18–19 June Niagara left Auckland. She was carrying passengers including RAAF Air Vice Marshal Stanley Goble, who with his wife was en route to Canada to be air liaison officer in Ottawa. Her cargo included half of New Zealand's entire stock of small arms ammunition. It was being sent via Canada to mitigate a shortage in the Dunkirk evacuation. In her strong room she was secretly carrying 590 gold bars from South Africa, valued at £2,500,000. They were a payment from the United Kingdom to the then-neutral United States for munitions. At 0340 hrs on 19 June Niagaras bow struck one of Orions mines off Bream Head. The explosion blew the hatch cover and stanchions off her forward hold. The cover was blown into the sea, complete with a motor car that had been secured to it as deck cargo. Niagara fired distress flares, her wireless operator transmitted a distress message and her crew launched her 18 lifeboats. Everyone aboard successfully abandoned ship in 90 minutes, without loss of life, and with only a few minor injuries. Sources disagree on the number of people involved. They are variously cited as 202 or 203 crew, and 136, 146 or 148 passengers. The evacuation was helped by her electric lighting continuing to function. Niagaras stern rose clear of the water before she sank by her bow at 0532 hrs in of water between the Mokohinau Islands and Hen and Chicken Islands. Her sinking ended a 27-year career in which Niagara made 162 round trips between Australia, New Zealand and Canada and sailed nearly . At dawn the lifeboats were scattered over an area of about . Shortly after 0800 hrs the cruiser sighted them. An aircraft circled them, then at 1030 hrs a fast motor launch arrived whose crew told the lifeboat crews in which direction to steer. The lifeboats proceeded under sail until their occupants were rescued by "a large liner in the vicinity" that was diverted to the scene. Under conditions of wartime secrecy, news reports at the time did not disclose that it was Huddart Parker's Trans-Tasman liner . The Northern Steamship Company coaster Kapiti and a number of launches transferred survivors from the lifeboats to Wanganella. Niagaras only apparent fatality was her ship's cat, a five-year-old grey and white long-haired tom called Aussie. His mother had been Niagaras cat before him, his father was a