Attack on Nauru

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Attack on Nauru
Damaged phosphate charging station on Nauru after the shelling of the German auxiliary cruiser on December 27, 1940
Damaged phosphate charging station on Nauru after the shelling of the German auxiliary cruiser on December 27, 1940
date 6 -8. December 27th and December 27th 1940
place Nauru
output German victory
Parties to the conflict
AustraliaAustralia Australia

War Ensign of Germany (1938–1945) .svg German Empire

Commander

War Ensign of Germany (1938–1945) .svg Robert Eyssen ( sea ​​captain )

Troop strength
2 auxiliary cruisers
1 tanker
losses

5 freighters

No

The attacks on Nauru took place from December 6th to 8th and on December 27th 1940 by German auxiliary cruisers . At that time Nauru belonged to Australia , Great Britain and New Zealand and is now an independent island state in the South Pacific , where a large amount of phosphate is mined. Phosphate is used in the manufacture of agricultural fertilizers and explosives.

The auxiliary cruisers sank five Allied merchant ships and severely damaged the phosphate loading stations. Although the loading stations and the delivery of fertilizer were of great importance to the economy of Australia and New Zealand on Nauru and Ocean Island , the islands were militarily unprotected and the attacking Germans were able to carry out their attacks without losses.

The two attacks on Nauru during World War II were the most effective attacks by German auxiliary cruisers in the Pacific. Phosphate shipments to Australia, New Zealand and Japan had to be suspended for a period of ten weeks after the attack. This subsequently reduced the agricultural yields in these countries. In response to the attack, the Allied warships had to protect Nauru and the nearby Ocean Island and escort their merchant ships on routes through the South Pacific. Small military garrisons were also installed on the islands to protect them.

background

Map of the South Pacific showing the routes of German ships and the locations of sunk Allied ships in the period from December 1940 to January 1942.

Phosphate mining and export on the islands was operated by the British Phosphate Commission (BPC) based in Melbourne , Australia . During the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1940 for accounting purposes in Australia, BPC had transported one million tons of phosphate on Nauru and about half of it on Ocean Island through its fleet of four freighters ( Triadic , Triaster , Triona and Trienza ) and other charter ships .

The islands had no harbor and no structural mooring facilities, so the ships had to be secured to low-lying moorings in order to pick up their cargo via crane girders . Furthermore, from November to March, the south-westerly winds hindered the freighters from storing their cargo, or they had to cast off until the wind conditions improved. It was therefore common for these ships to drift in the wind in order to save fuel, and several ships were often in front of Nauru at the same time.

Although the phosphate deposit was of great importance to the economies of Australia and New Zealand, the two islands had only been given a low military priority because the limited military resources were needed elsewhere. Strategic phosphate reserves had been formed in Australia, but they were too small to compensate for the islands' failure after an attack.

In late October 1940, the German auxiliary cruiser Orion ( called Raider A in Australia ), commanded by Captain Kurt Weyher , encountered two other German ships: the Komet auxiliary cruiser ( called Raider B in Australia ) under the command of Robert Eyssen and on the cargo ship Kulmerland at Lamotrek on the Caroline Islands . Eyssen was the more experienced of the two captains and took command of the German ships, which were now combined as the Far East Association . The three Axis ships operated off the east coast of New Zealand for 18 days in November and sank the small coastal ship Holmwood and then the large ocean liner Rangitane by gun hits on November 25 and 29, respectively , without being detected by New Zealand's weak defense forces. After these attacks, the auxiliary cruisers continued their voyage to the Kermadec Islands , where on November 29, they dropped the women and children they had captured on board the Kulmerland when the Rangitane was sunk . From there, the three ships continued to Nauru to attack and destroy the phosphate production and the ships assembled there, which the German captains knew were lying there.

Attacks on Nauru

Map of the region of Nauru showing the movements of German ships and the locations of sunk allied ships from 7th / 8th centuries. through December 27, 1940, which are described here.
Photo of the auxiliary cruiser Komet .

The German forces encountered a BPC ship on December 6, 1940 on its way to Nauru. The Triona (4413 t) was attacked northeast of the Solomon Islands and sunk by a torpedo hit after three members of her crew had been killed by a gun hit by the auxiliary cruiser. 68 men were captured.

The German captains intended to remove a land command and destroy the transport facilities on December 8th, but bad weather forced them to concentrate on the ships that were in front of the island. On the evening of December 7th, the Komet , which had transformed into the Japanese merchant ship Manyo Maru , went ahead to investigate the situation. She sank the Norwegian merchant ship Vinni (5181 t) 9 km south of Nauru. Since the auxiliary cruiser had been camouflaged and was flying a false flag, it was mistaken for a merchant ship from Japan.

The Orion hit the comet off Nauru in the early hours of December 8th. Together they attacked the Triadic (6378 t), damaged it and sank the Triaster (6032 t). The Komet tried unsuccessfully to destroy the Triadic by scuttling itself ; the Orion eventually sank it by fire. The Komet later sank the steamer Komata (3900 t). After these attacks, the two auxiliary cruisers and the Kulmerland turned away 32 km east of Nauru. When the weather improved and a landing was possible, it was decided that the Komet and Kulmerland should head to Ailinglaplap Atoll in the Marshall Islands , where the Komet would load fuel while the Orion operated in northwestern Nauru. Then the ships should meet in front of the island to make another attempt to land for an attack.

When the German armed forces gathered in front of Nauru on December 15, the weather deteriorated, so that a landing was prohibited and the attack on Nauru had to be canceled. Further attacks were not considered feasible because the auxiliary cruisers had intercepted a radio message calling on the ships lying in front of Nauru to disperse. Instead, the three German ships went to the Australian-administered island of Emirau to drop off the 675 prisoners who were on board their ships. There Weyher refused to release the prisoners from Europe aboard the Orion because he assumed that the trained officers and men were just as big a problem for the British as their transportation. Therefore, only 343 Europeans and 171 people of Chinese and South Pacific island origin were deposed.

Fortunately for the Germans, as one of the few islands in the region, there was no Royal Australian Navy military personnel to notify the Australian authorities. The two European families who lived on the island supported the released prisoners with goods and sent a canoe to Kavieng on New Ireland to inform the Australian colonial government. A schooner was dispatched to bring more goods to Emirau, which arrived on December 24th. The colonial administrator of New Britain and other goods were flown to Emirau aboard a seaplane . The released prisoners were picked up on the steamer Nellore on December 29 and transported to Townsville , Queensland , where they arrived on January 1, 1941. They provided valuable intelligence information on the operations of the German auxiliary cruisers, and on February 19, 1941, the German ship personnel received orders not to take any more prisoners.

The three German ships left Emirau together on December 21st. The Orion went to Lamutrik and then to Maug on the Caroline Islands to overhaul the machines, the Kulmerland turned to Japan and only the Komet continued its operations in the South Pacific. On December 24th she tried to lay mines with her motorboat in front of Rabaul , but the attempt failed due to a failure of the boat's engine.

The Komet returned to Nauru after an unsuccessful attempt to lay mines and reached the island at 5:45 a.m. on the morning of December 27th. After issuing a warning and signals to those who had no radio reception that she would destroy the phosphate loading station, she opened fire at 6:40 a.m. The bombardment lasted about an hour. During this time, the auxiliary cruiser destroyed the loading facility, oil tanks, boats, buildings and the moorings. After this attack, she continued her journey south-east and the Nauru radio reported the attack to Australia. This was the last visit by a German ship to Nauru during the war and the comet was ordered to the Indian Ocean .

Review

The Manoora off Nauru in January 1941 shortly after the attack; in the foreground debris from the loading facilities

The German attack on Nauru had consequences for the Australian and New Zealand economies and was the greatest success of the German auxiliary cruisers operating in the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. It took ten weeks to resume loading ships off Nauru, and the loss of freighters and damaged infrastructure resulted in a significant decline in phosphate shipments. The delivery bottleneck resulting from the attack required rationing of food in New Zealand from July 1941. The destructive bombardment of the island by the comet also forced the government of Japan to reduce the supply of aid to the warring German Reich due to the resulting phosphate shortage .

The success of the attacks by the auxiliary cruisers on Nauru led to rumors in Australia and New Zealand that the auxiliary cruisers had been successful on the island with the help of traitors. Several investigations came to the conclusion that the rumor was not true.

After the attacks, the Australian government was forced to take protective measures against further attacks by the auxiliary cruisers. The Royal Australian Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force flew larger numbers of patrols to detect the auxiliary cruisers near their main ports. In addition, the leadership of the Australian Navy asked the British Admiralty to regroup the Australian naval units so that they could counter the threat from the auxiliary cruisers. The request was approved and the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the armed merchant ship HMAS Kanimbla were ordered back from other stations to Australia. The HMAS Manoora reached Ocean Island on January 4, 1941 when she was escorting the Trienza . Various Australian and New Zealand warships were continuously present off the island during the following months. Two field howitzers were also placed on the islands. The attacks also resulted in convoys of ships being formed to move cargo between Australia and New Zealand. The Navy also used the information that the secret service had received from the released prisoners on Emirau, and diverted merchant ships from the areas in which the auxiliary cruisers were operating. This limited the military effectiveness of the German auxiliary cruisers, and the Komet and Orion sank only three other ships in the period between the attacks on Nauru and their return to Europe in late 1941.

literature

  • Robert Forczyk : German Commerce Raider vs British Cruiser: The Atlantic & The Pacific, 1941 . Osprey, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-1-84603-918-8 .
  • G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942 . In: Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Series 2 - Navy . Australian War Memorial, Canberra 1957 ( online ( September 21, 2013 memento in the Internet Archive )).
  • Richard Jackson: Maritime Power in the 20th Century: The Australian Experience . Ed .: David Stevens. Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1998, ISBN 1-86448-736-4 , Forcing force development: the impact of the German raiders on New Zealand's maritime defenses ( online ).
  • Michael Pretes: The Nauru Connection . In: Wartime . No. 23 . Australian War Memorial, 2003, ISSN  1328-2727 .
  • Sydney David Waters: The Royal New Zealand Navy . In: The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-1945 . Historical Publications Branch, Wellington 1956 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Nauru in World War II  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Pretes: The Nauru Connection. 2003, pp. 24-25.
  2. ↑ G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, pp. 276-277.
  3. ↑ G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, p. 277.
  4. ↑ G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, p. 283.
  5. ↑ a b c d G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, p. 280.
  6. ↑ Jackson: Maritime Power. 1998, p. 94.
  7. ↑ MS Vinni 's Story, Victim of Comet . Warsailors.com. Retrieved September 5, 2008.
  8. ↑ a b c d e G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942. 1957, p. 281.
  9. ^ Sydney David Waters: The Royal New Zealand Navy. 1956, p. 145.
  10. ↑ Jackson: Maritime Power. 1998, p. 95.
  11. ^ Sydney David Waters: The Royal New Zealand Navy. 1956, pp. 145-146.
  12. ↑ G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, p. 282.
  13. ^ A b Sydney David Waters: The Royal New Zealand Navy. 1956, pp. 147-148.
  14. ↑ a b Robert Forczyk: German commerce raider vs British Cruiser: The Atlantic & The Pacific, 1941. 2010, S. 62nd
  15. ↑ G. Hermon Gill: Royal Australian Navy 1939-1942. 1957, p. 284.

Coordinates: 0 ° 32 ′ 3.8 ″  S , 166 ° 54 ′ 44.1 ″  E