Wilsons prom war history

[Mike K]

Great story here > Local history mostly forgotten about. I have more info on the minesweeping flottilla based at Port Welshpool HMAS Orara and 3 other vessels .
MIKE

http://historyofwilsonspromontory.wo...y-terry-synan/

http://historyofwilsonspromontory.fi...erry-synan.pdf

[gjamo]

Thats a great story Mike. It happens that my great great grandfather was lighthouse keeper at the prom when it was brand new.
Graeme

[lynx42]

Good stories Mike. My father Frank T Cove was with the 2/7th Independant Coy and trained at the Prom in 1942.
In 1963 the was a memorial cairn unveiled to the memory of the Commandos who trained there and I was the boy scout who had to raise the flag at the unveiling ceromony.
Rick

[Mike K]

I recall seeing that little memorial down there at Tidal river with the double diamond on it .

I have another article in MS word doc. format - detailing the wartime history of the Port Welshpool long jetty . Quite large vessels could moor right alongside it . There was a flotilla of 3-4 ships , commandeered civilian ships, ancient things , coal burners ,fitted out as mine sweepers . The HMAS Orara was so leaky , they had plated its hull with myriad patches. The navy sailed it down to the prom. and that was the limit.

A ship, SS CAmbridge ,was mined and sank just off the prom. A German raider PASSAT ,laid the mines in Bass Strait.

[Mike K]

One of the converted ships too ..

The Article

Historical Vale of the Port Welshpool Long Jetty
2. The Port Welshpool Long Jetty - World War II
It should not be forgotten how valuable the port was found to be during the World War II. It was a base for the RAN minesweepers. 5,000 ton boats used the port without any difficulty and without any dredging whatever. (Mirror, 27/8/1964) The pier was much used during the war by mine sweepers and other vessels for refuelling, etc. (Time and Tide at Port Welshpool, Lillie M. Peterson, 1978, p. 13) The Fuel was coal, possibly from the nearby Gelliondale coalfield which was productive during the war.
German Raiders brought the Port Welshpool Long Jetty, the only deepwater jetty east of Melbourne in Victoria, into a key role in WW2 in the protection of the southern shipping lanes soon after its construction.
Prophetically, GEORGE R. LEGGETT, B.A. wrote in the Argus on Saturday June 8th 1940

WHEN MINES WERE LAID IN AUSTRALIAN WATERS

‘PREPARATIONS made by the Commonwealth Government to build and equip mine-sweeping vessels in Australia, and reports of the discovery of a minefield off Cape Agulhas, recall that enemy mines were laid in Australian waters during the war of 1914-18. ….’ ‘Mysterious explosions, which destroyed the steamers Norfolk and Cumberland, were believed at the time to have been caused by time bombs set in their hulls. The former was beached on the Ninety Mile Beach, where, later on, she was burnt out. The Cumberland was beached at Gabo Island with her decks awash
People pooh-poohed the Idea of a raider being off our coast, and a man who reported a large steamer with lights out in the vicinity of Port Kembla was laughed at. But, in later years, his report proved correct, for the Wolf actually sent her little aeroplane over Sydney…’
‘In after years (after WW1) it was known that the Wolf passed through Bass Strait and laid several minefields. And both the Norfolk and Cumberland (sunk of the NSW south coast) were victims of mines and not to Internal explosion…’Fix this text
Bass Strait was a major shipping lane and had already been identified as vulnerable and reinforced by articles like these in the press. Months before the first loss of shipping to mines laid by raiders a minesweeper fleet was created by both commissioning ships to be built and requisitioning exiting ships that were refitted for the purpose. It was these requisitioned ships that were first brought into action and stationed at the Port Welshpool Long Jetty including .the HMA Ships Swan, Warrego, Doomba and Orara to work off the Victorian coast near Wilson's Promontory.
Communications were essential for this operation and the Wilson’s Promontory Lighthouse on southeast point played a key role. The following extract is from Terry Syan, Wilson’s Promontory: The war years 1939-1945:



‘War Signal Station, Wilsons Promontory
With gathering storm clouds in the late 1930s signifying another war with Germany, the Naval Office, Department of Defence, Melbourne, looked again at establishing War Signal Stations (WSSs) at a number of key points around the continent.’
‘The station was established on Commonwealth property at South-east Point on 22 October 1939. Its task was to keep naval authorities informed of all shipping using Bass Strait as well as reporting aircraft movements and other relevant information gathered. Through the use of signal flags and an acetylene-powered lamp, the station became a communications link between naval ships and the Royal Australian Navy, transmitting orders and advice and receiving information from passing ships (Nesdale, 1984). ‘

‘In late October 1940, another German raider, the Passat, visited Bass Strait’s sea lanes and laid a number of minefields. Explaining its erratic course, it signalled
the possible loss of a man overboard. Late on the night of 7 November, the British Freighter Cambridge struck a mine some 3.5 km off South-east Point and sank with
the loss of one life. The surviving crew rowed three lifeboats towards Wilson’s Promontory, signalling the WSS to report the sinking.’
WW2 German Raiders come to Bass Strait
Raiders were armed merchant ships that were disguised to enable them in ‘enemy’ waters undetected or even approach or be approached by allied shipping and warships which they would capture or attempt destroy. The most famous raider was the Kormoran that sunk (and was sunk by) the Australian warship, HMAS Sydney.

Mackenzie J Gregory’s website, Ships Ahoy - Naval, Maritime, Australian History gives a comprehensive account of the ’Pinguin’ and Passat’;


The Pinguin photographed from a German submarine as it was reprovisioning (note the Greek name, Kassos.)
From Mackenzie J Gregory’s website, Ships Ahoy - Naval, Maritime, Australian History:
The Pinguin was formerly the 7,766 ton "Kandelfels," "Pinguin" was rated at a speed of 18 knots, and was fitted with the usual Raider armament.( it had been removed from the old battleship "Schiesien.) In summary, she was second only to "Atlantis" as the most successful, captured or sank more ships than any other Raider, her tally 28 ships, to total 136,551 tons, all achieved in less than a year, from the 22nd. of June, 1940 to the 8th. of May, 1941.
"Atlantis" only beat her in the tonnage sunk stakes by a mere 5,000 tons. "Pinguin" became the first German Armed Merchant Raider to be sunk, but that is to pre-empt her story.
The Captain, Felix Kruder, joined the Navy in 1915, unusually, having been promoted from the lower deck, he was 43. 300 mines were placed on board, to be laid on the West coast of India, and off Australia. By the 9th of June, trials were complete, she was to operate off the Australian coast, and, from December to March 1941 to harry Allied Whaling fleets in Antarctica.
On the 7th. of October (1940), whilst moving North East towards Java, a ship came in sight, obviously exiting from the Sunda Strait area, and making for Australia. A flag signal and warning shot soon stopped "Storstad" a Norwegian Tanker. "Pinguin" and her Captain seemed very partial to ships emanating from Norway, and came across them often.
She was just under 9,000 tons, and carried the wonderful cargo of 12,000 tons of diesel oil, and 500 tons of coal from North Borneo, bound for Adelaide and Melbourne. The Raider immediately topped up her own tanks with 1,200 tons from the Tanker, Kruder renamed this ship "Passat," which in German meant "Trade Wind," he had found his Auxiliary Minelayer.

From the same website, the ‘Storsstad’ the tanker renamed the Paasat and used to lay mines in Bass Strait:
In company, the ships moved Southwards of Australia, Kruder was to mine Newcastle and Hobart, and "Passat" sat her deadly load at both ends of Bass Strait, that stretch of water, dividing the Australian mainland from the Island of Tasmania.

SS Cambridge sunk by mines laid by the ‘Passat’




The Sinking of the SS Cambridge off Wilson’s Promontory
From British Merchant Navy Forum (http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/a...-144589-a.html)

On 7 November 1940, the Cambridge was outbound from Melbourne to Sydney and Brisbane under the command of Captain Paddy Angell. At 11:00PM, two and a half miles south-east of Wilsons Promontory, she struck one of several German mines laid in Bass Strait. The mine exploded towards the aft of the ship, flooding the engine room. A distress signal was broadcast, without reply, before Captain Angell ordered the ship to be abandoned.

The ship sank stern first, in just 45 minutes. Of the 56 crew aboard, all but one escaped in one of the three lifeboats; ship's carpenter J. Kinnear returned to his cabin to retrieve money, but failed to escape despite the efforts of the rest of the crew to rescue him. The three lifeboats were rescued by the auxiliary minesweeper, HMAS Orara and taken to Port Welshpool. The Cambridge was not salvaged and was forgotten about until she was relocated by an RAN survey in 1972 and again by the National Safety Council in 1989. She lies in 33 fathoms (66 metres) of water. Some sports diving was conducted (including some pillaging) in the late 80s until the ship was declared an Historic Ship Wreck in August 1989.
From Dive Time site (http://www.divetime.com/ ); ‘Situated south east of Wilson's Prom lays the wreck of the SS Cambridge, a British steamer. Built in 1916 as the German ship Vogtland she was a steel hulled screw steamer, her overall length was 524 feet her beam 65 feet and her draught was 37 feet giving her a displacement weight of 10,846 tons. She sank after hitting a mine off Wilson's Promontory, two and a half nautical miles offshore, 7 November 1940. Of the ship's company of fifty-eight, only one man was lost. HMAS Orara took the survivors from the boats and landed them at Welshpool.’

Photo: ‘Ships at Port Welshpool and other Memories’, Jack Loney, Febuary 1990
The next day the City of Rayville, a US registered vessel and the first Americam shipping loss of WW2, struck another mine laid by the Passat of Cape Otway.

From Peter Dunn’s Oz at war website (http://www.ozatwar.com/german/cityofrayville.htm)
The American registered freighter "MS City of Rayville" (5,833 tons, owned by American Pioneer Lines) with stars and stripes painted on both sides of its hull, left Adelaide for Melbourne on 7 November 1940. At approximately 7:47pm on Friday 8 November 1940 it was reported from Cape Otway Port War Signal Station that an explosion had been heard and seen and that a sinking ship could be seen in the fading light about 6 miles south of the Signal Station. Fishing vessels from nearby Apollo Bay were directed to go to her assistance.
Wilson’s Promontory link to the Sydney

As the war progressed, WSS Wilsons Promontory continued its vital naval communications work as troop convoys, various naval ships and squadrons
and numbers of convoys passed by. It also played an intriguing role in the tragic disappearance of the Sydney, sunk off Carnarvon (WA), in November 1941 with the
loss of all 645 officers and crew when it encountered and sank the German raider Kormoran. Most of the German sailors escaped their stricken ship, and on 27
November the troop ship Aquitania signalled Southeast Point that it had 26 German crew on board, picked up on 23 November in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the possible presence of enemy craft still in the vicinity, Aquitania’s captain did not stop or break
radio silence to notify authorities of his captives. This communication provided further detail of an unfolding drama - Australia’s greatest maritime tragedy and
mystery (Olson, 2000). [The site of the sunken Sydney was discovered in 2008.]

The Port Welshpool Long Jetty: home to minesweeping fleet during and after WW2

The Orara was at times the flagship of this fleet and was stationed with three others at the Long Jetty at Welshpool when the Cambridge sunk off Wilson’s Promontory. Up to four minesweepers at any one time could be seen loading coal at the Long Jetty (see photo below).
Two days after the loss of the Cambridge, the Orara and the Durraween commenced minesweeping operations off Wilson's Promontory, and destroyed forty-three mines from Bass Strait. (From Dive Time site (http://www.divetime.com/)

How mines were swept
If a contact sweep hits a mine, the wire of the sweep rubs against the mooring wire until it is cut. Sometimes "cutters", explosive devices to cut the mine's wire, are used to lessen the strain on the sweeping wire. Mines cut free are recorded and collected for research or shot with a deck gun. – or rifles as below.
(From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_mine#Mine_sweeping)
(Sadly, not long after these photos were taken, the HMAS Goorangai was lost with all hands after a collision with a troop ship while crossing Port Phillip Heads)
The tools of minesweepers like those used by those that used the Long Jetty

C.1940. On the auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Goorangai, a member of the crew adjusts the serrated edge of the sweep gear. The edge is designed to sever the moorings of the mines. (Australian War Memorial naval historical collection)


Shooting at the ‘horns’ on the mines to explode them once the cables had been cut


Clifford Bottemly’s photo of an official photographer-cameraman on board the auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Orara taking moving footage using a Bell and Howell Eyemo 35mm motion picture film camera of one of two German mines swept up off Wilson's Promontory in the Bass Strait area in a joint operation with the auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Durraween (seen in background). Swept mines like these were destroyed and sunk by rifle fire from the minesweepers. (from Australian War Memorial records) Both boats based at the Long Jetty.

Photo HMAS Sydney in Convoy passing Wilson’s Promontory
(Australian War Memorial archive)

At sea, 1940-12. An Australian Navy minesweeping fleet comprising HMA Ships Swan, Warrego, Doomba and Orara at work off the Victorian coast near Wilson's Promontory
(Australian War Memorial archive)


Photo: ‘Ships at Port Welshpool and other Memories’, Jack Loney, Febuary 1990
A local woman, Mary Ellis, provided the taxi service for the crews of the minesweepers.
The Fishermen’s Shed, clearly visible at the end of the Long Jetty, was used to store coal to fuel the minesweepers and other naval boats that used the jetty during the war.

Four Minesweepers loading coal from the Long Jetty
John Woolley Photo Collection

Due to the slow pace of the construction of purpose built minesweepers the bulk of the fleet at Port Welshpool were boats requisitioned from civilian use. Those confirmed by that is a boat that both Jim and Frank Roberts, a port worker and a fishermen of many decades at Port Welshpool recall are the following.
(The following descriptions of these minesweepers are from World Naval Ships Forums http://www.worldnavalships.com/forum...hp/t-3756.html)
HMAS Orara, auxiliary minesweeper, RAN 1939-1944, is today's RAN Ship Of The Day. (See photos above)
Built at Kinghorn in Scotland in 1909 for the North Coast Steam Navigation Co of NSW, the 1,297 ton Orara was commissioned into the RAN at the very beginning of the war, in September 1939, becoming a unit of the 20th Minesweeping Flotilla. She was armed with a single 4-inch gun forward, two Lewis machine guns and four depth charges. In January 1940 with HMAS Doomba (previous post) she swept off Wilson's Promontory in advance of US1, the first of the big troop convoys heading for Europe.

The area had been mined by two German ships escaping from Melbourne at the start of the war, and on November 7 that year Orara (Lt-Cmdr J.G.S. Fyfe RANR) rescued survivors in lifeboats from one of the mine victims, the British steamer SS Cambridge, and took them into Port Welshpool.

Orara swept the area and the first mine detection and explosion in Australian waters (2nd pic) was credited to Orara and her chief gunner Petty Officer J. Renwick, and she destroyed another soon after.

In October 1941 Orara and HMAS Durraween took part in the recovery of an RAAF Wirraway fighter that had crashed into the sea off the small village of Yanakie on Wilson's Promontory (pics 4&5) while making a low level mock attack on troops ashore during a training exercise. Air Observer Sgt John Stuart Padman was killed, and pilot Frederick Watchorn injured, both picked up by small boats from shore.

Two years later,in October 1943, it is thought that Orara narrowly escaped attack by a Japanese submarine when, in an area off Port Welshpool where a small vessel had been torpedoed and sunk the previous day, Anson bombers from No 67 squadron at Laverton dropped bombs on what was thought to be a sub close by her.

Orara re-fitted at Williamstown and sailed for New Guinea where she served briefly as anti-submarine escort and training vessel until paid off in May 1945.

Returned to her owners, the aging ship was sold to Chinese interests in 1946 and variously named Canton River, Hong Shan and Santos afterwards. Ironically, she was sunk by a mine in the Yangtse River on June 19, 1950.

HMAS Durraween Auxillary Minesweeper
Durraween was owned and operated by Red Funnell Trawler Pty Ltd. On 29 July 1940, Durraween was requisitioned by the RAN for use as an auxiliary. During the war, Durraween was based in Port Melbourne, Victoria as part of Minesweeping Group 54, and operated in Bass Strait. Together with HMS Orara, they sweeped for mines off Wilsons Promontory in November 1940 and removed forty-three mines from Bass Strait, which had been laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin and auxiliary minelayer Passat. Durraween was paid off on 1 November 1945.

The Durraween before her fit out from http: www.mercantilemarine.org
After being returned to her owners in 1946, she worked again as a trawler. She was stripped and broken up at Blackwattle Bay in 1952.
HMAS Paterson, auxiliary minesweeper, RAN 1941-45

HMAS Paterson Photo 301153 AWM Collection
What I can tell you is that she was 446 ton wooden coastal steamer built by Morrison and Sinclair of Sydney in 1920, that she gave more than four years naval service before being returned to unnamed owners on November 26 1945 - and that she ended her life 300 yards of the Cabbage Tree Bay wharf on the NSW Central Coast on June 11, 1951,having sprung a leak and foundered.

She was fitted out for naval service at Williamstown, Victoria, and commissioned into the RAN on May 1, 1941. The derrick that sat out on her forepeak in civilian service (pic 4) was moved back towards the bridge, and a bandstand mounted on the forepeak for a 12-pounder QF gun. She was also fitted with a Vickers MG, four depth charges and the usual minesweeping floats and gear.
HMAS Doomba, (N01, later J01) auxiliary minesweeper, ex-HMS Wexford. RAN 1939-46. 800 tons.
Armament: One 4 inch gun, several light AA weapons
16 knots. Complement 74.


HMAS Doomba (from Wikipedia)

Built in 1919 in the U.K., the former Hunt Class minesweeper HMS Wexford was sold to the Brisbane Tug and Steamship Company in 1921 and served as a day trip ferry between Brisbane and Stradbroke Island. She was requisitioned into the RAN in September 1939. A coal-burner she became known as ‘Smokey Joe’ for obvious reasons. In January 1940 she and another minesweeper worked ahead of the huge US1 Middle East troop convoy as it made its way around Wilson’s Promontory towards the Southern Ocean, and seas were so steep inshore at one point Doomba was seen moving backwards from a sheet anchor . In mid-year she swept for suspected mines off Cape Otway.

Doomba was in Sydney Harbour at the time of the Japanese midget submarine raid on the night of May 31, 1942, and sighted one of the subs near Robertson’s Point, joining in the willing hunt all over the Harbour for the (3) attackers.

With submarine activity increasing off the Australian East Coast she was re-fitted as an anti-submarine escort, and on June 12 picked up 51 survivors from boats after the Panamanian ship Guatemala was torpedoed 40 miles northeast of Sydney. In 1944 and 1945 she was used for training duties before returning to the minesweeping flotilla at Brisbane towards war’s end. She paid off in March the following year, was finally sold to shipbreakers and stripped. The hull was then on-sold to Meggitt Ltd, however and converted to a dumb lighter, re-named Meggol. In this role the former HMS Wexford/HMAS Doomba pottered around the sides of ships on Sydney’s wharves until 1970.

On December 1 1976 she was one of two vessels towed to Long Reef outside Sydney and sunk as an artificial reef.
The Whyalla
The Whyalla minesweeper used the Long Jetty at during WW2 and immediately after. On 10 February 1947 Whyalla (I) was sold to the Victorian Public Works Department refitted and renamed RIP, being employed as a lights maintenance vessel and continued to use the Long Jetty when working eastern Bass Strait.

John Woolley Photo Collection
She ceased service as RIP in 1984. When the Whyalla City Council became aware that the ship was to sold as scrap, successful negotiations resulted in the Council purchasing her for $5,000. She returned to Whyalla under her own power later in 1984. She ceased service as RIP in 1984. When the Whyalla City Council became aware that the ship was to sold as scrap, successful negotiations resulted in the Council purchasing her for $5,000. She returned to Whyalla under her own power later in 1984.
A Shark Boat and a Minesweeper involved in a Rescue off the Prom
The Janet Isles was involved with the Orara in the rescue of the pilot of a Wirraway that crashed of the Five Mile Beach on Wilson’s Promontory. On the 6th of October 1941 Arnie Smith and crew saw a plane land in the sea behind them and turned around and went to the rescue. On the website, Ozatwar, there are photos of the salvage of the aircraft and the Janet Isles. The Orara minesweeper and Janet Isles fishing boat were both based at the nearby Long Jetty.
CRASH OF A WIRRAWAY AT SWIMASHORE BAY (Actually Five Mile Beach), WILSON'S PROMONTORY ON 6 OCTOBER 1941
‘On 6 October 1941 at 1100 hours, Wirraway A20-189 of 5 Squadron RAAF based at Laverton, crashed into Swimashore Bay, near Wilson's Promontory. The wreckage of the aircraft was located and buoyed on 7 October 1941.
A salvage party accompanied by Naval divers with equipment, arrived at Port Welshpool on 7 October 9141. They proceeded to the crash scene at 6:00 am on 8 October 1941 in a launch chartered locally. Two minesweepers, including HMAS Orara, were standing by at the crash scene. The pilot of Wirraway A20-189 was P/O Frederick Arthur Watchorn and his Air Observer was Sgt John Stuart Padman (8835). The aircraft flew into the sea whilst carrying out Army Co-operation exercises with No. 7 Infantry Training Centre and sank. It was one of two aircraft sent to Yanakie for the exercises. It would appear that the aircraft had been involved as part of the exercises in low level flying attacks on troops. The pilot P/O Frederick Arthur Watchorn received facial injuries and shock and the effects of immersion. The Air Observer Sgt John Stuart Padman was killed in the crash.

© Peter Dunn 2006
The wreckage of Wirraway A20-189 floating just below the surface of the water

© Peter Dunn 2006
Though labelled as ‘Small boat from HMAS Orara recovers the body of the pilot of Wirraway A20-189’ the boat is actually the Janet Isles, based at the Long Jetty, had been returning home from fishing when the plane crashed into the sea behind them. They turned around and picked up the pilot (or co-pilot?) who had swum to the surface but could not rescue the other crewman who was strapped in.

© Peter Dunn 2006
The crew of the Orara involved in the recovery.




© Peter Dunn 2006
The main fuselage of the wrecked Wirraway being lifted on board HMAS Orara


© Peter Dunn 2006
The main fuselage of the wrecked Wirraway being laid on the deck of HMAS Orara


© Peter Dunn 2006
Wing(s) of Wirraway A20-189 being lifted aboard

© Peter Dunn 2006
The engine being lifted aboard Orara – note the Janet Isles in the background


© Peter Dunn 2006
The engine from Wirraway A20-189 being lifted on board HMAS Orara
AUSTRALIAN ARCHIVES RECORDS Title: Accident to Wirraway A20-189 Squadron at Swimashore Bay, Wilson's Promontory on 6/10/1941 - P/O F A Watchorn Series number A705 Control symbol 32/16/205 Contents date range 1941 - 1941 Access status Open
Location National Office Barcode no 165769
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I'd like to thank Noel ? for his assistance with this web page. Noel forwarded me the photographs of the Wirraway being recovered by HMAS Orara. These photos were taken by a friend of his who was on board HMAS Orara.
http://www.ozatwar.com/ozcrashes/vic79.htm
Post WW2 Minesweeping
After the War the Long Jetty continued to be used as a base for minesweepers to clear Bass Strait. See The West Australia, 27th November 1946;
AREAS CLEARED OF MINES ON PRIORITY SYSTEM CANBERRA, November 26.-The coasts of Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia had all been mined at some time or other during the war by the Japanese and the Navy Department had worked out a priority system for clearing the areas, stated the Minister for the Navy (Mr Riordan) in the House of Representatives todav. He said that the priority system was: (1) Off Sydney, (2) Bass Strait, (3) off Hobart, (4) South Australian waters, and (5) the New Guinea area……………


HMAS Whyalla that worked in later minesweeping operations from the Port Welshpool Long Jetty.


The Loss of Jetties in Corner Inlet
Wooden jetties at Yanakie, Toora – built in 1899 were destroyed by the commando unit based at Wilson’s Promontory in 1943, as part of military exercises)
Corner Inlet is a vast shallow Inlet intersected by five large channels. Without these jetties the community has been cut off from the Inlet at low tide – except at Port Welshpool.
The loss of jetties had a profound negative impact on the economies of Yanakie and Toora communities, first denying them commercial fishing, then recreational boating and now the economic benefits from the boom in recreational jetty fishing.