Action in Australian Waters 1939-1945

It was less than three months after war had been declared that the war
at sea came near the Australian Station when a small British tanker was
sunk in the Indian Ocean by the German pocket battleship, Admiral Graf
Spee. Throughout the years 1939 to 1945, ships in Australian waters were
on guard against attack from mines, surface raiders, submarines and
aircraft. During 1940, four German armed merchant cruisers or surface
raiders were operating in or near the Australian Station. In June 1940,
mines laid by the raider Orion sank a ship near Auckland. Two months
later the Orion shelled and sunk two further ships; one from Newcastle
bound for New Caledonia and a second from Sydney that was nearing New
Zealand waters. From the Tasman Sea, the Orion sailed to the Indian
Ocean in September 1940 where it laid dummy mines near Albany, WA before
retracing its steps to meet with a German supply ship in mid Pacific in
October. The first sinkings in Australian waters occurred in November
from mines laid by the Pinguin and the Storstad, a captured Norwegian
tanker. They laid minefields between Sydney and Newcastle, in Bass
Strait, off Hobart and in the Spencer Gulf.

Both ships returned to the Indian Ocean and on 20 and 21 November sank
by gunfire two ships 800 miles west of Fremantle. The Pinguin, Storstad
and Orion laid 234 mines in Australian waters which sank three ships and
damaged a fourth in the last two months of 1940 killing nine seamen.
Casualties from mines in Australian waters in 1941 were fortunately few
with only one trawler being lost. The Millimumul sank with the loss of
seven crew in March 1941 after hitting a mine that had been laid five
months before by the Pinguin. On 14 July two ratings from a Rendering
Mines Safe party were killed by a mine that had been laid in Spencer
Gulf and had washed up onto a beach at Beachport, South Australia.




During the first two years of the war it was German surface raiders that
were active on the Australian Station. As well as the increased threat
to shipping from Japanese submarines, 1942 saw the introduction into the
Indian Ocean of large numbers of German U-boats. On 20 January 1942, six
weeks after Pearl Harbour, a Japanese submarine I-124, specially
equipped for minelaying was sunk 60 miles west of Darwin. It probably
laid the mines that were reported at that time in the northern
approaches to Darwin, four of which washed ashore on 11 February. Eight
days later Darwin was attacked by carrier-borne planes which sank eight
ships and damaged many more in the harbour. Less than three months later
a larger carrier force was turned back in the Battle of the Coral Sea
(4-8 May 1942). The submarines that accompanied the Japanese fleet in
the Coral Sea were ordered to proceed to Truk to equip with midget
submarines.

On 20 May, an aircraft from Japanese r submarine I-29 carried out an
unobserved reconnaissance of Sydney. Ten days later, an aircraft from
I-21 carried out another reconnaissance of Sydney. The following
evening, Sunday, 31 May three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour.
The midget submarines were sunk but the depot ship HMAS Kuttabul and 19
naval ratings were lost. On 8 June, the I-24 fired 10 high explosive
shells at Sydney's eastern suburbs and I-21 fired 6 high explosive
shells at Newcastle. This was the last enemy action against the
Australian mainland from ships, although air attacks continued in
Northern Australia. During the period June to August 1942, seven
Japanese submarines operated along the eastern coast of Australia
sinking seven ships. In November 1942, 1400 miles north west of
Fremantle, an Australian built ship, HMIS Bengal sank one of the two
Japanese raiders that operated in the Indian Ocean.

In January 1943, Japanese submarine I-1 returned to the Australian east
coast and sank or damaged five ships in four weeks. From April until
June five Japanese submarines operated along the Australian eastern
coast attacking fifteen ships and sinking eight. Among those sunk was
the hospital ship Centaur, torpedoed off Brisbane with the loss of 268
lives. On 16 June the Portmar sank with the loss of one crewman in what
was the last Japanese sinking along the eastern Australian coast.