CONTENTS Introduction ................................... 1 1 The raiders prepare ............................ 3 2 The Orion’s Atlantic war ......................... 17 3 The Hauraki Gulf operation .................... 31 4 The Pinguin’s first victories ...................... 46 5 The Northeast Passage ......................... 62 6 The Tasman raider ........................... 70 7 The Far East squadron ......................... 86 8 The Australian minefields ...................... 97 9 The Indian Ocean pursuit ...................... 110 10 Nauru and the phosphate ships . 124 11 Hilfskreuzer Kormoran .......................... 133 12 The castaways of Emirau Island . 143 13 Von Luckner, spies and the fifth column .......... 152 14 Return to Nauru and intrigue in Japan ........... 164 15 The raider war in Antarctica .................... 172 16 The Kormoran in the Atlantic ................... 179 17 Remote encounters and the islands of despair ..... 189 18 Tanker hunt in the Arabian Sea . 204 19 A new operational area ....................... 218 20 The voyage of the Adjutant ..................... 231 21 Destination Bordeaux ........................ 238 22 The Galápagos Islands raider .................. 248 23 Encounter off Shark Bay ...................... 259 24 The Kormoran−Sydney battle .................... 268 25 The fleet of lifeboats ......................... 285 Epilogue ................................... 294 Appendix: The raiders ........................ 300 Glossary . 308 Acknowledgments ........................... 312 Notes . 313 Bibliography ................................ 340 Index ..................................... 351 FF interiors final.indd 6-7 Tuesday5/April/2016 1:26 PM INTRODUCTION The German auxiliary cruisers Orion, Komet, Pinguin and Kormoran terrorized the high seas in a forgotten naval campaign during the early years of World War II. After departing Germany, these raiders voyaged across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, as well as the Arctic and Antarctic, sinking Allied merchant ships in Australian and New Zealand waters, and near exotic locations, such as Madagascar and the Galápagos Islands. Their extraordinary voyages are maritime sagas in the finest tradition of seafaring, and they fought a successful ‘pirate war’ in the middle of the twentieth century, sinking or capturing sixty-two ships. The Orion and Komet terrorized the South Pacific before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when the war was supposed to be far away, and in this seemingly quiet backwater they mined New Zealand waters and destroyed the Allied phosphate ships at Nauru. The Pinguin operated extensively in the Indian Ocean before audaciously mining the approaches to five Australian ports and capturing the Norwegian whaling fleet in Antarctic waters. Ultimately she became Germany’s most successful raider, accounting for three times more tonnage than the famous pocket battleship Graf Spee. The Kormoran successfully hunted merchantmen in the Atlantic before entering the Indian Ocean where she encountered the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney. In one of the strangest naval engagements in history, the Kormoran sank the Australian warship but the crew scuttled their raider after she sustained irreversible damage. Most German sailors survived but all 645 men on board the Sydney perished in tragic circumstances.1 FF interiors final.indd 8-1 Tuesday5/April/2016 1:26 PM 2 FALSE FLAGS The Allied sailors who encountered these raiders often fought suicidal battles against a vastly superior foe, and their courage often saved other ships. Many unfortunate sailors and passengers, including women and children, endured captivity on the raiders, where unlikely relationships formed. Most prisoners expected sadistic treatment at the hands of the ‘Hun’ but the genuinely humane conduct of the raider crews, in most cases, transformed their fear into admiration. The naval planners in Berlin co-ordinated the raider war while their opposite numbers in Britain, Australia and New Zealand desperately tried to stop the onslaught. The British Admiralty selected Sub-Lieutenant Patrick Beesly, an energetic young officer in the Naval Intelligence Division, to analyze raider operations and he fought a war in the shadows alongside his CHAPTER 1 colleague Ian Fleming, who later based his James Bond novels on his wartime experiences. THE RAIDERS PREPARE As the Soviet Union and Japan provided clandestine support to the raiders, much intrigue, espionage and diplomacy surrounding their voyages unfolded in Moscow and Tokyo. The German naval attaché in Russia, Apart from the auxiliary-cruiser commanders and their crews, credit for Kapitän Norbert von Baumbach, exploited the Nazi−Soviet Pact to secure their successes is shared by the commanders and crews of the supply assistance for the raiders from a strangely willing Soviet Navy. Konteradmiral ships, oil tankers and mother ships, by the engineers who converted Paul Wenneker, the naval attaché in Japan, meanwhile obtained support them for their tasks, and by all the numerous experts and others in the from the technically neutral Japanese Navy while Allied diplomats plotted to naval department and the shipyards who took part in the preparation sabotage his efforts. and maintenance of the ships.1 Vic Marks, an Australian sailor, became a prisoner on the Orion in the Grossadmiral Erich Raeder Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine South Pacific. After being transported to occupied France on the blockade runner Ermland, he experienced four years of captivity in Germany before returning home in 1945. Decades later, feeling forgotten, he wrote to a newspaper in 2001: AN UNEXPECTED CONFLICT To Grossadmiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine Most people know of the sinking of HMAS Sydney by the raider (German Navy), war with Great Britain was unthinkable because Germany Kormoran but few know about the sinking of 10 ships by the Orion could never hope to challenge the Royal Navy’s might.2 When Hitler came and Komet in [and] near Australian and NZ waters in the Pacific with a to power in 1933, Raeder established an understanding with him that heavy loss of seamen’s lives.2 peace with Britain had to be maintained through recognition of her naval superiority. After Germany and Britain signed the Anglo−German Naval The story of this forgotten raider war has finally been told and does justice to Agreement in 1935, Raeder believed war between the two countries would men like Vic Marks, who will be remembered.3 be impossible, but Hitler’s ambitions would eventually spark war.3 FF interiors final.indd 2-3 Tuesday5/April/2016 1:26 PM 4 FALSE FLAGS THE RAIDERS PREPARE 5 After Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland, Raeder ordered the pocket planning.7 By 1911 the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) had well- battleships Deutschland and Graf Spee to the Atlantic, but he believed there developed plans to convert liners into auxiliary cruisers for use as raiders in would be no war with Britain as Hitler had produced a political miracle future conflict.8 with the announcement of the Nazi−Soviet Pact to a stunned world.4 After Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, cruisers On 1 September 1939 German forces invaded Poland and two days later operating from colonies, such as the Emden and Karlsruhe, initiated a Britain declared war on Germany. To Raeder, this unexpected conflict was campaign of commerce raiding; the Kreuzerkrieg (Cruiser War), and auxiliary a strategic nightmare given the Royal Navy’s tenfold numerical superiority.5 cruisers quickly saw action. The armed liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse sank The unprepared Kriegsmarine could only wage a trade war against Britain’s three freighters before being intercepted by HMS Highflyer off Spanish West maritime commerce by attacking merchant ships.6 Africa.9 The liner Cap Trafalgar, after being armed by the gunboat Eber, The Graf Spee claimed nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian headed towards Brazil only to be sunk by HMS Carmania.10 After the Karlsruhe Ocean before being intercepted by the Royal Navy at the River Plate on armed the liner Kronprinz Wilhelm near Cuba, she captured fifteen vessels in 13 December 1939. The damaged pocket battleship retreated to Montevideo the South Atlantic before a lack of coal forced her internment in America.11 and Kapitän Hans Langsdorff later scuttled her. Meanwhile the Deutschland The Cormoran and Prinz Eitel Friedrich departed Tsingtao, the German naval claimed three victims in the North Atlantic, but damage sustained during base in China, intending to raid Australian waters, but a lack of coal made storms compelled Kapitän Paul Wenneker to return home. These raiders this impossible.12 The Cormoran eventually became interned in Guam and disrupted British maritime trade but operated for less than three months. The the Prinz Eitel Friedrich sank eleven vessels before being interned in America.13 Kriegsmarine would be unable for some time to deploy conventional warships The Kreuzerkrieg ended in 1915 due to the Kaiserliche Marine’s inability to the Atlantic, as Raeder required the entire fleet to support the upcoming to despatch more raiders, and the capture of German colonies made it invasion of Norway, but he had a secret weapon capable of waging raider impossible to support operations far from home. The armed liners had warfare on a global scale. The Kriegsmarine was covertly building a fleet of high coal consumption, greatly reducing their range.14 Before the war the auxiliary cruisers. Germans believed