The German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran (HSK-8) was a Kriegsmarine merchant raider of World War II. Originally the merchant vessel Steiermark, the ship was acquired by the navy following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider. Administered under the designation Schiff 41, to the Allied navies she was known as Raider G. The largest merchant raider operated by Germany during World War II, Kormoran was responsible for the destruction of 10 merchant vessels and the capture of an 11th during her year-long career in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
SS Elingamite was an Australian passenger steamer of 2,585 tons, built in 1887, and owned by Huddart Parker. The ship was wrecked on 9 November 1902 off the north coast of New Zealand carrying a large consignment of gold. Now the Elingamite wreck is a favourite site for adventurous divers because of the drama associated with it, and wild tales of lost treasure.
SS Cuba was a passenger and cargo steamship that was wrecked in 1923 off the coast of California. Her remains are now a wreck diving site. She was launched in Germany in 1897 as Coblenz for Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), who owned and operated her until the United States seized her in 1917. The United States Shipping Board took possession of her and renamed her Sachem. In 1920 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company bought her and renamed her Cuba.
HMAS Australia was one of three Indefatigable-class battlecruisers built for the defence of the British Empire. Ordered by the Australian government in 1909, she was launched in 1911, and commissioned as flagship of the fledgling Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1913. Australia was the only capital ship to serve in the RAN.
RMS Niagara was a transpacific steam ocean liner, Royal Mail Ship and refrigerated cargo ship. She was launched in 1912 in Scotland and sunk in 1940 by a mine off the coast of New Zealand.
TSS Kanowna, was an Australian steamer built during 1902. The 6,993-ton, 126-metre (413 ft) long Kanowna was constructed by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, Scotland, and had a twin screw design.
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.
Huddart Parker Ltd was an Australian shipping company trading in various forms between 1876 and 1961. It was one of the seven major coastal shippers in Australia at a time when shipping was the principal means of interstate and trans-Tasman transport. The company started in Geelong, but in 1890 shifted its offices to Melbourne. By 1910 Huddart Parker had grown to rank 24th of the top 100 companies in Australia by asset value. Several of the company's ships served in World War I and World War II. Huddart Parker ceased to be an independent company in 1961, when it was taken over by Bitumen and Oil Refineries Australia Limited.
SMS Wolf was an armed merchant raider or auxiliary cruiser of the Imperial German Navy in World War I. She was the fourth ship of the Imperial Navy bearing this name, following two gunboats and another auxiliary cruiser that was decommissioned without seeing action.
SS Zealandia, nicknamed "Z", was an Australian cargo and passenger steamship. She served as a troopship in both World War I and World War II. Zealandia transported the Australian 8th Division. Her crew were the last Allied personnel to see HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all hands in 1941. Zealandia was sunk in the air raids on Darwin of 19 February 1942.
During World War II, surface raiders and submarines of the Axis powers, primarily Germany and Japan, conducted naval activities in various parts of the world, including the waters around New Zealand.
HMAS Bungaree was a cargo steamship. She was built in Scotland in 1937 as Bungaree for the Adelaide Steamship Company of South Australia. The Royal Australian Navy requisitioned her in 1040, and had her converted into a minelayer. She was Australia's only minelayer in the Second World War, and laid more than 10,000 mines. In 1944 she changed rôles, becoming first a survey ship, and then a stores ship. The Navy returned her to her owners in 1947.
HMAS Berrima was a passenger liner which served in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during World War I as an armed merchantman and troop transport. Launched in 1913 as the P&O liner SS Berrima, the ship initially carried immigrants from the United Kingdom to Australia via Cape Town. In August 1914, Berrima was requisitioned for military use, refitted and armed, and commissioned into the RAN as an auxiliary cruiser. The ship transported two battalions of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to the German New Guinea colonies in September.
The German attacks on Nauru were conducted in December 1940 on the island of Nauru, an Australian-administered League of Nations mandate in the Central Pacific. Nauru was of considerable strategic importance for its phosphate resources. The 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. Under the terms of the League of Nations mandate, the island had no fortifications or military facilities and was consequently undefended, with the German forces unimpeded in their operations.
Koraaga was a Castle-class steel-hulled trawler built in 1914 by Smith's Dock Company, South Bank, Middlesbrough. She was requisitioned as an auxiliary minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in October 1917 for minesweeping duties during World War I, but she was never commissioned. Koraaga returned to be operated commercially as a fishing trawler until she wrecked when she struck a reef off Bass Point whilst carrying returning to Sydney. She was refloated on the tide after having becoming stranded and drifted till she was finally lost five miles (8.0 km) east of Black Head, Gerringong on 10 September 1931.
The Merksworth was an iron steamer screw built in 1874 at, Paisley, that was wrecked when it swamped whilst carrying coal between Newcastle and Sydney and was lost off Stockton Beach on 7 May 1898.
RMS Tahiti was a UK Royal Mail Ship, ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship. She was launched in 1904 in Scotland as RMS Port Kingston for a subsidiary of Elder Dempster Lines. In 1911 the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand bought her and renamed her Tahiti.
SMS Emden was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig in 1906. The hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers, Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.
SS Hertford was a refrigerated cargo steamship that was launched in Germany in 1917, seized by the United Kingdom in 1920 as World War I reparations, and sunk by a U-boat in 1942 with the loss of four members of her crew.
The New Zealand Company was a 19th-century English company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles of systematic colonisation devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings.
Australia
