RAIDER WOLF

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 181, 3 July 1940, Page 6

RAIDER WOLF

CRUISE DURING LAST WAR MINES OFF DOMINION Enemy mine sowing off the New Zealand coast by the German raider Wolf during the last war, and the sinking of two victims, are recalled by the loss of the recently. Seventy mines were laid on that occasion off the North Cape and Cape Farewell, the northern most promontories of both islands., while the Wolf was in these waters between June 25 and 2S, 1917. ! An unpretentious converted cargo steamer of 5809 tons, the Wolf wfas the first enemy vessel ever to enter ] Australia and New Zealand waters, and she caused a commercial and 1 insurance stampede when she appeared in seas thought to the free ] from enemy action. She " left Germany ni November, 1916, and until ] her return to Kiel after 15 months 1 she covered (-4,000 miles, and was 1 officially credited with sinking 135- 1 000 tons of shipping. * Mines Laid at Night. i The Wolf laid minefields off Cape- ' town, Colombo, Bombay, Singapore ' and the New Zealand and Austra- * Han costs. She came to North Cape s from Sunday Island and, according s to Mr Roy Alexander, radio oper- * ator on the Wairuna, who she sank 400 'miles from New Zealand, who * subsequently wrote his adventures as a prisoner on the Wolf, she stay- f ed out of sight of land until night- 1 fall, and between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m scattered 25 mines over a Avide area. For the next t;wo days the Wolf steamed down the west coast of the North Island, and at times was so close to the shore that the prisoners believed they could have swum s ashore if given a chance. Nightfall c was again awaited before minelaying began, and then between 10 p.:m s and 2 a.m. about 45 mines were 1 scattered in a.series of small fields, 1 designed to block Cook Strait. f One prisoner named Rees, who 1 was second officer on the ill-fated c Wairuna, jotted down on paper the 1 laying of each mine. He became 3 very ill and was subsequently transhipped to a captured collier. which was wrecked on the Danish coast. His notes served to give the British authorities the approximate c positions of the mines. £ 1 Ships That Were Lost. i Some, however, were not destroy- 1 ed, and the Huddart-Parker inter- ' colonial passenger steamer Wimmera, of 3022 tons, was mined off the North Cape on Jufte 26, 1918t a year after the Wolf's visit to New Zealand. The explosion occurred at 5.15 a.m., as the vessel was proceeding from Auckland to Sydney, carrying 66 passengers and a crew of 75. Of this complement of 141, a total of 27/ lost their lives. A much earlier victim was the Commonwealth and Dominion Line's steamer Port Kembla, bound from Melbourne to London, via Wellington, which sank in 20 minutes of? Farewell Spit, Nelson, on September 18. 1917, after a tremendous explo- , sion in the forehold. All on board ( were saved. Apart from produce £ for England, the Port Kembla car- j x-ied the largest mail ever lost en ( voute to New Zealand. .. "" 1 — e