General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: u boats in new zealand waters ww2
Posted by:
Yuri IL\'IN
()
Date: March 30, 2002 11:26PM
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<h3>Marlborough was reconnoitred by enemy subs </h3>
01 FEBRUARY 2002
The existence of a World War 2 "spy base" at Rapaura, as recounted in last week's Saturday Express raises the question about U-boats in New Zealand waters and around Marlborough's coast during those years. Tony Orman reports.
It was just another moonlit night in the 1940s when Jim Heberley was rowing back across Tory Channel towards his home after visiting neighbours.
Suddenly something large broke the surface to his right and near the entrance to the channel. A whale perhaps, thought Jim. Then to his startled eyes, he saw it was something quite different - a submarine!
Jim stared fascinated and with a growing sense of fear, for in the bright moonlight he could make out the Japanese markings. It may have been a few, several or a score of minutes. Perhaps the submarine commander then saw Jim? Either way the submarine submerged and the waters were quiet again.
Jim hurriedly rowed ashore, rang the military authorities and reported what he had seen. The reply was seemingly dismissive, apparently alleging he had enjoyed too many drinks at the neighbours.
My comment:
New Zealand in 19 century feared the attack of Russians. This is not joke. In Cook strait was built a fort for feflection of Russian landing. Fort has power and modern artillery. However, not any Russian ship so appeared there. Instead Russians water of New Zealand visited Japanese and Germans. Lets us not lose the real perception of reality and then it is not necessary for us to construct unnecessary forts for the reflection of fantastic attacks.
Regards,
Yuri IL'IN
Moscow Russia
In actual fact, the authorities were playing a deliberate game with any reports such as Jim Heberley's.
Historian and researcher Robert Montgomery, of Blenheim, says the public reaction of the government and military was understandable.
"To avert public fear and to deny the Japanese any useful feedback, all reports of aircraft or submarine sightings were officially discounted as a case of jittery nerves. However, beneath the surface they were being investigated all the same."
At least five enemy submarines are known to have visited the Cook Strait area during World War 2, says Robert.
The book, The Royal New Zealand Navy - an official history by SD Waters, said the first venture of a Japanese submarine appeared to have been made in March 1942, but "possibly one or more may have done so earlier".
Indeed, a Japanese document captured in 1944 revealed the reconnaissance cruises made by the Japanese I class, 100 crew, large aircraft-carrying submarines may have begun as early as November 30, 1941.
"As well as their armament of eight, 21 inch torpedo tubes, one 5.5 inch gun and two anti-aircraft machine guns, each vessel could carry three midget submarines or a small aircraft with wings that could be dismantled. The aircraft fitted into a car shed-sized hangar forward of the conning tower," explains Robert.
In May 1942, Japanese midget submarines launched from two mother submarines, attacked Sydney Harbour sinking several ships.
One, the Japanese submarine I-25 carrying a small float plane came through Cook Strait under a full moon. It was forced to take a surface course because the strong underwater current was greater than the submerged speed of the vessel. The sub's plane made a successful reconnaissance of Wellington Harbour.
"This may well have been the sub Jim Heberley sighted," says Robert.
The type of aircraft was a small two-seater, mono-float-plane Yokosuka E14Y1 capable of staying aloft for three hours and known to the Allies as a Glen aircraft.
Japanese flights from submarines were made over Wellington on March 8 and Auckland on March 13, 1942.
"It is known that a Japanese aircraft made at least one reconnaissance flight over the Marlborough Sounds, as well as flying over the entire Nelson-Marlborough area."
In Marlborough, other submarine incidents apart from the Tory Channel one, occurred. Early one morning, a submarine was observed moving slowly on a gently curving course near Long Island, Queen Charlotte Sound, before retrieving its Glen aircraft. Later in the war, a Port Underwood farmer recalled that one foggy afternoon his curiosity was aroused by the throb of a diesel engine out on the water. From a distance he observed a "long, dark craft, very low in the water with a bridge or conning tower amidships."
"Japanese, German or American? Who knows?" says Robert. "After all the possibility of a US sub cannot be discounted as US subs were in New Zealand waters towards the end of the war, as was at least one U-boat."
At the same time, German U-boat submarines are now known to have prowled New Zealand's coast often in audacious yet circumspect style.
In June 1943, the German navy chief Admiral Karl Donitz sent a fleet of 27 long range U-boat submarines to the Far East. Only 15 made it as the others were sunk by Allied aircraft or ship attacks. Two boats headed back to Germany, while the remaining 13 U-boats began operations. One was the submarine U-862 commanded by Kapitan Heinrich Timm.
In December 1944, it sailed down the east coast of Australia and sank a US liberty ship near Sydney on Christmas Eve. Past conjecture was that it may have visited New Zealand.
It indeed did, as proved by Robert Montgomery who managed to obtain a translated version of Kapitan Timm's log-book from Germany.
January 3, 1945 - "We are gradually getting closer to the New Zealand coast."
On January 5 the U-862 was north of North Cape and proceeded to travel down the east coast of the North Island. En route, it tried to stalk and destroy steamers, but was frustrated by a combination of the need to avoid detection, at times rough weather and alertness by ships spotting the approaching torpedo track and taking evasive action.
Kapitan Timm wrote in his log, "That's the old problem when you are pursuing a steamer near to the coast; you can't get into position to fire at night and then you don't manage because you can't get up close enough during the day without being seen from the land."
Frustrated he wrote after one day, "And that's how it went today. In the dawn we dived and another steamer has got out of our clutches."
Each night Kapitan Timm would surface to give the crew some fresh air. With only the conning tower awash the U boat sometimes eased towards shore so close that at Napier, the Kapitan recorded "You can see the beach cafe with bright red lights and the dance music is playing old tunes."
The U-boat lay off Gisborne and was so close that "during the day you can see through the periscope people walking along the street".
One night the submarine sneaked into Gisborne harbour noting, "The docks are brightly illuminated, behind them a big factory." However U-862 found "no worthwhile ship at anchor or at the docks which we could have sunk".
Kapitan Timm observed: "The people here are all so magnificently unsuspecting."
U-boat 862 slipped out from the harbour under cover of darkness.
"We go about very carefully, slip out of the harbour and later are taken up into the open sea without being noticed."
Twice the U-boat did fire torpedoes at two steamers, but missed each time.
New Zealander Air Marshal Sir Rochford Hughes met U-862's Kapitan Timm in 1950 when serving in Germany, five years after the end of World War 2.
"Kapitan Timm was the sort of chap I believed implicitly," he said in an interview some years later.
Kapitan Timm then related an incident off the Hawkes Bay coast. Among the U-boat's crew were several young men brought up on farms in Germany. At night in an inflatable dinghy they stole ashore and milked some cows to have fresh milk with their breakfast.
U-862 then moved southwards and on January 19 passed by "Cook Strait towards the south", and then headed to Australia where it sank a liberty ship near Perth before returning to its base at Penang in Indonesia.
However, there were other unexplained encounters with submarines that were not the work of U-862, as they occurred well before she entered New Zealand waters. A gun crew on the inter-islander Rangatira on March 1, 1944, reported seeing a torpedo wake pass close astern.
On March 8, 1944, a submarine sighting was made off Pencarrow Head near Wellington. An anti-submarine vessel made sonar contact and dropped depth charges but to no result.
On November 3, 1943, another identified radar contact was made from a radar station at Cape Campbell. A patrol boat dropped depth charges, but again with no result.
Sightings from inter-island ferries, observed torpedo tracks across the bows of ships, a sighting from a navy minesweeper, unidentified objects on radars and an incident in Pelorus Sound, all were unexplained at the time.
In February 1943, radar picked up an unidentified object off Palliser Bay, then later that day personnel at a shore battery near the entrance to the Sound reported a "black speck" 25km out in Cook Strait. Radar contact was made with the object, but an aircraft search about half an hour later, revealed nothing as the sub had probably dived.
Marlborough may have been a key in enemy plans to take the South Pacific. The presence of submarines, confirmed or not confirmed, hints strongly at it.
Meanwhile Robert Montgomery is currently compiling a book The Armed Camp on Marlborough's role and activities in World War 2.</HTML>
<h3>Marlborough was reconnoitred by enemy subs </h3>
01 FEBRUARY 2002
The existence of a World War 2 "spy base" at Rapaura, as recounted in last week's Saturday Express raises the question about U-boats in New Zealand waters and around Marlborough's coast during those years. Tony Orman reports.
It was just another moonlit night in the 1940s when Jim Heberley was rowing back across Tory Channel towards his home after visiting neighbours.
Suddenly something large broke the surface to his right and near the entrance to the channel. A whale perhaps, thought Jim. Then to his startled eyes, he saw it was something quite different - a submarine!
Jim stared fascinated and with a growing sense of fear, for in the bright moonlight he could make out the Japanese markings. It may have been a few, several or a score of minutes. Perhaps the submarine commander then saw Jim? Either way the submarine submerged and the waters were quiet again.
Jim hurriedly rowed ashore, rang the military authorities and reported what he had seen. The reply was seemingly dismissive, apparently alleging he had enjoyed too many drinks at the neighbours.
My comment:
New Zealand in 19 century feared the attack of Russians. This is not joke. In Cook strait was built a fort for feflection of Russian landing. Fort has power and modern artillery. However, not any Russian ship so appeared there. Instead Russians water of New Zealand visited Japanese and Germans. Lets us not lose the real perception of reality and then it is not necessary for us to construct unnecessary forts for the reflection of fantastic attacks.
Regards,
Yuri IL'IN
Moscow Russia
In actual fact, the authorities were playing a deliberate game with any reports such as Jim Heberley's.
Historian and researcher Robert Montgomery, of Blenheim, says the public reaction of the government and military was understandable.
"To avert public fear and to deny the Japanese any useful feedback, all reports of aircraft or submarine sightings were officially discounted as a case of jittery nerves. However, beneath the surface they were being investigated all the same."
At least five enemy submarines are known to have visited the Cook Strait area during World War 2, says Robert.
The book, The Royal New Zealand Navy - an official history by SD Waters, said the first venture of a Japanese submarine appeared to have been made in March 1942, but "possibly one or more may have done so earlier".
Indeed, a Japanese document captured in 1944 revealed the reconnaissance cruises made by the Japanese I class, 100 crew, large aircraft-carrying submarines may have begun as early as November 30, 1941.
"As well as their armament of eight, 21 inch torpedo tubes, one 5.5 inch gun and two anti-aircraft machine guns, each vessel could carry three midget submarines or a small aircraft with wings that could be dismantled. The aircraft fitted into a car shed-sized hangar forward of the conning tower," explains Robert.
In May 1942, Japanese midget submarines launched from two mother submarines, attacked Sydney Harbour sinking several ships.
One, the Japanese submarine I-25 carrying a small float plane came through Cook Strait under a full moon. It was forced to take a surface course because the strong underwater current was greater than the submerged speed of the vessel. The sub's plane made a successful reconnaissance of Wellington Harbour.
"This may well have been the sub Jim Heberley sighted," says Robert.
The type of aircraft was a small two-seater, mono-float-plane Yokosuka E14Y1 capable of staying aloft for three hours and known to the Allies as a Glen aircraft.
Japanese flights from submarines were made over Wellington on March 8 and Auckland on March 13, 1942.
"It is known that a Japanese aircraft made at least one reconnaissance flight over the Marlborough Sounds, as well as flying over the entire Nelson-Marlborough area."
In Marlborough, other submarine incidents apart from the Tory Channel one, occurred. Early one morning, a submarine was observed moving slowly on a gently curving course near Long Island, Queen Charlotte Sound, before retrieving its Glen aircraft. Later in the war, a Port Underwood farmer recalled that one foggy afternoon his curiosity was aroused by the throb of a diesel engine out on the water. From a distance he observed a "long, dark craft, very low in the water with a bridge or conning tower amidships."
"Japanese, German or American? Who knows?" says Robert. "After all the possibility of a US sub cannot be discounted as US subs were in New Zealand waters towards the end of the war, as was at least one U-boat."
At the same time, German U-boat submarines are now known to have prowled New Zealand's coast often in audacious yet circumspect style.
In June 1943, the German navy chief Admiral Karl Donitz sent a fleet of 27 long range U-boat submarines to the Far East. Only 15 made it as the others were sunk by Allied aircraft or ship attacks. Two boats headed back to Germany, while the remaining 13 U-boats began operations. One was the submarine U-862 commanded by Kapitan Heinrich Timm.
In December 1944, it sailed down the east coast of Australia and sank a US liberty ship near Sydney on Christmas Eve. Past conjecture was that it may have visited New Zealand.
It indeed did, as proved by Robert Montgomery who managed to obtain a translated version of Kapitan Timm's log-book from Germany.
January 3, 1945 - "We are gradually getting closer to the New Zealand coast."
On January 5 the U-862 was north of North Cape and proceeded to travel down the east coast of the North Island. En route, it tried to stalk and destroy steamers, but was frustrated by a combination of the need to avoid detection, at times rough weather and alertness by ships spotting the approaching torpedo track and taking evasive action.
Kapitan Timm wrote in his log, "That's the old problem when you are pursuing a steamer near to the coast; you can't get into position to fire at night and then you don't manage because you can't get up close enough during the day without being seen from the land."
Frustrated he wrote after one day, "And that's how it went today. In the dawn we dived and another steamer has got out of our clutches."
Each night Kapitan Timm would surface to give the crew some fresh air. With only the conning tower awash the U boat sometimes eased towards shore so close that at Napier, the Kapitan recorded "You can see the beach cafe with bright red lights and the dance music is playing old tunes."
The U-boat lay off Gisborne and was so close that "during the day you can see through the periscope people walking along the street".
One night the submarine sneaked into Gisborne harbour noting, "The docks are brightly illuminated, behind them a big factory." However U-862 found "no worthwhile ship at anchor or at the docks which we could have sunk".
Kapitan Timm observed: "The people here are all so magnificently unsuspecting."
U-boat 862 slipped out from the harbour under cover of darkness.
"We go about very carefully, slip out of the harbour and later are taken up into the open sea without being noticed."
Twice the U-boat did fire torpedoes at two steamers, but missed each time.
New Zealander Air Marshal Sir Rochford Hughes met U-862's Kapitan Timm in 1950 when serving in Germany, five years after the end of World War 2.
"Kapitan Timm was the sort of chap I believed implicitly," he said in an interview some years later.
Kapitan Timm then related an incident off the Hawkes Bay coast. Among the U-boat's crew were several young men brought up on farms in Germany. At night in an inflatable dinghy they stole ashore and milked some cows to have fresh milk with their breakfast.
U-862 then moved southwards and on January 19 passed by "Cook Strait towards the south", and then headed to Australia where it sank a liberty ship near Perth before returning to its base at Penang in Indonesia.
However, there were other unexplained encounters with submarines that were not the work of U-862, as they occurred well before she entered New Zealand waters. A gun crew on the inter-islander Rangatira on March 1, 1944, reported seeing a torpedo wake pass close astern.
On March 8, 1944, a submarine sighting was made off Pencarrow Head near Wellington. An anti-submarine vessel made sonar contact and dropped depth charges but to no result.
On November 3, 1943, another identified radar contact was made from a radar station at Cape Campbell. A patrol boat dropped depth charges, but again with no result.
Sightings from inter-island ferries, observed torpedo tracks across the bows of ships, a sighting from a navy minesweeper, unidentified objects on radars and an incident in Pelorus Sound, all were unexplained at the time.
In February 1943, radar picked up an unidentified object off Palliser Bay, then later that day personnel at a shore battery near the entrance to the Sound reported a "black speck" 25km out in Cook Strait. Radar contact was made with the object, but an aircraft search about half an hour later, revealed nothing as the sub had probably dived.
Marlborough may have been a key in enemy plans to take the South Pacific. The presence of submarines, confirmed or not confirmed, hints strongly at it.
Meanwhile Robert Montgomery is currently compiling a book The Armed Camp on Marlborough's role and activities in World War 2.</HTML>
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