German submarine U-862 was a Type IXD2 U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. After Germany's surrender in May 1945, U-862 put into Singapore and was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy under the name I-502.
The Royal New Zealand Navy is the maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force. The fleet currently consists of nine ships. The Navy had its origins in the Naval Defence Act 1913, and the subsequent purchase of the cruiser HMS Philomel, which by 1921 had been moored in Auckland as a training ship. A slow buildup occurred during the interwar period, and then perhaps the infant Navy's most notable event occurred when HMS Achilles fought alongside two other Royal Navy cruisers at the Battle of the River Plate against the German ship, Graf Spee, in December 1939.
HMAS Kiama, named for the coastal town of Kiama, New South Wales, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
Komet (HSK-7) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in the Second World War, intended for service as a commerce raider. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 45, to the Royal Navy she was named Raider B.
Orion (HSK-1) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine which operated as a merchant raider in World War II. Blohm & Voss built her in Hamburg in 1930–31 as the cargo ship Kurmark. The navy requisitioned her at the start of World War II, had her converted into the auxiliary cruiser Orion, and commissioned her on 9 December 1939. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 36, her Royal Navy designation was Raider A. She was named after the constellation Orion.
There was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War, despite Australia being remote from the main battlefronts. German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets. Among the best-known attacks are the sinking of HMAS Sydney by a German raider in November 1941, the bombing of Darwin by Japanese naval aircraft in February 1942, and the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in May 1942. About 40 Allied merchant ships were damaged or sunk off the Australian coast by surface raiders, submarines and mines. Japanese submarines also shelled three Australian ports and submarine-based aircraft flew over several Australian capital cities.
From 31 May to 8 June 1942, during World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines made a series of attacks on the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle. On the night of 31 May – 1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines, each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. Two of the midget submarines were detected and attacked before they could engage any Allied vessels. The crew of M-14 scuttled their submarine, whilst M-21 was successfully attacked and sunk. The crew of M-21 killed themselves. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago, but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches.
The history of the Royal Australian Navy traces the development of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) from the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788. Until 1859, vessels of the Royal Navy made frequent trips to the new colonies. In 1859, the Australia Squadron was formed as a separate squadron and remained in Australia until 1913. Until Federation, five of the six Australian colonies operated their own colonial naval force, which formed on 1 March 1901 the Australian Navy's (AN) Commonwealth Naval Force which received Royal patronage in July 1911 and was from that time referred to as Royal Australian Navy (RAN). On 4 October 1913 the new replacement fleet for the foundation fleet of 1901 steamed through Sydney Heads for the first time.
Attacks on continental Australia during World War II were relatively rare due to Australia's geographic position. However, axis surface raiders and submarines periodically attacked shipping in the Australian coastal waters from late 1940 to early 1945. Japanese aircraft bombed towns and airfields in Northern Australia on 97 occasions during 1942 and 1943. Papua New Guinea was a part of Australia's overseas territories until 1975, and so the large Japanese invasion in 1942 was a significant invasion of territory under Australian control.
HMNZS Wakakura (T00) was originally a First World War Castle-class naval trawler built in Canada. Ordered by the Admiralty, the vessel, named TR 1, was loaned to the Royal Canadian Navy for use on the East Coast of Canada. She was purchased by New Zealand in 1926 and transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy when it was established in 1941.
Coastal Forces was a division of the Royal Navy established during World War II. It consisted of small coastal defence craft such as motor launches, submarine chasers, air-sea rescue launches, motor gun boats and motor torpedo boats. It did not include minesweepers, naval trawlers or landing craft. This article is about the equivalent boats used in the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN).
HMNZS Tui (T234) was a Bird-class minesweeper of the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was commissioned in 1941 for minesweeping and anti-submarine roles. Tui was the first of two ships with this name to serve in the Royal New Zealand Navy and was named after a native bird from New Zealand.
HMNZS Moa (T233) was a Bird-class minesweeper of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) that served during World War II.
HMNZS Puriri (T02) was a coastal cargo ship which was requisitioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and converted into a minesweeper. She was sunk by a German naval mine 25 days after she was commissioned.
The German attacks on Nauru refers to the two attacks on Nauru in December 1940. Nauru is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania, in the Central Pacific. These attacks were conducted by auxiliary cruisers between 6 and 8 December and on 27 December. The raiders sank five Allied merchant ships and inflicted serious damage on Nauru's economically important phosphate-loading facilities. Despite the significance of the island to the Australian and New Zealand economies, Nauru was not defended and the German force did not suffer any losses.
Heinrich Timm was a German U-boat commander in World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. In 1944-45 Timm commanded the U-862, the only U-boat to conduct a patrol in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.
Prior to World War II, the Indian Ocean was an important maritime trade route between European nations and their colonial territories in East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, British India, Indochina, the East Indies (Indonesia), and Australia for a long time. Naval presence was dominated by the Royal Navy Eastern Fleet and the Royal Australian Navy as World War II began, with a major portion of the Royal Netherlands Navy operating in the Dutch East Indies and the Red Sea Flotilla of the Italian Regia Marina operating from Massawa.
The Eastern Fleet, later called the East Indies Fleet, was a fleet of the Royal Navy which existed between 1941 and 1952.
Commander Gordon Bridson, was a New Zealand swimmer who won two silver medals at the 1930 British Empire Games. He was also in the New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and in the Second World War, he served in the Royal New Zealand Navy. Seconded to the Royal Navy in 1940, he commanded a minesweeper vessel that accompanied coastal convoys along the English Channel. He was later the commander of the minesweeper HMNZS Kiwi which, with her sister ship Moa, sunk the Japanese submarine I-1 off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
