Husarenstreich gegen S.M.S KOMET

Begonnen von Leutnant Werner, 21 März 2007, 21:25:16

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Leutnant Werner

Hallo, liebe Freunde der Kolonial-Marine :-D,

Nicht nur die deutschen hatten so "schneidige Piraten" zu bieten a la Kapitän Müller oder Graf Luckner, auch die Briten konnten den einen oder anderen Freibeuter vorweisen.

Bei meinen Recherchen zu dem kürzlich über die Bühne gegangenen Thread über S.M.S GEIER stieß ich in Band 1 der "Naval Operations" von Sir Julian Corbett auf folgende Fußnote:

"The Komet early in October was found to be hiding on the North coast of New Britain, and using her wireless for intelligence purposes. An expedition against her was organized at Rabaul consisting  of the captured Government yacht Nusa  (= ex-deutsch) under Lieut.-Commander J. M. Jackson, R.N., and some Australian infantry under Lieut.-Colonel J. Paton. Between them they managed a very clever surprise, and on the 11 th the Komet was seized undamaged with her wireless gear intact. She was added to the Australian fleet as the gunboat Una."

Aber hallo! Haben sich die Kameraden doch überrumpeln lassen.....na, sowas! :MLL:

Dass das andere Vermessungsfahrzeug der Deutschen im Pazifik, S.M.S PLANET, vier kleine 3,7cm-Spritzen an Bord hatte, aussah, wie eine Yacht, und sich bei Auftauchen der Japaner am 07.10. vor Yap selbstversenkte, weiß ich bereits.

Über KOMET weiß ich nichts, meine Flottenkataloge geben nicht viel her. Nur Jane´s Warships of WW I gibt für HMAS UNA folgendes an: (ex-German Surveying Ship Komet, built 1911, captured 1914). 1438 tons. Dimensions: 210 x 31 x 16 feet. Guns: 3 - 4inch, 1 - 3pounder, 2 MG. H.P. 1300 = 16 knots. Coal: 270 tons. Complement: 114.

Jetzt meine Fragen:
1.) Hat einer eine ausführlichere Beschreibung der abenteuerlichen Operation, die zur Erbeutung von S.M.S. KOMET führte?
2.) Die Ari an Bord von UNA ist klar britisch. Welche deutschen Kanonen waren an Bord (3 bis 4 8,8 oder 10,5?). Wenn KOMET gut bewaffnet war, wieso wird sie dann nicht als Kriegsschiff geführt?
3.) Genauere Information über Antriebsanlage (Turbine oder 3-fach-Expansion), Höchstgeschwindigkeit,weitere technische Daten und Aussehen erwünscht.

Grüßle
Lt.

Peter K.

lt. Gröner:

KOMET

Bremer Vulkan, Vegesack
Bau-Nr. 543
Baujahr 1911

977 BRT, ca. 1.600 t
64,09/69,50 x 9,50 x 4,10 m, Seitenhöhe 7,10 m
2 x 3zyl3fach Expansionsmaschinen
3 Kessel (13,5 atü)
1.400 PSi für 13 kn

2x3,7 cm Revolverkanonen
Kapazität für 160 Mann an Truppen

Gouverneursyacht in Deutsch Neu-Guinea
10.11.1914 australische Beute, Lotsendampfer UNA oder ULA
ab 1925 britisch AKUNA
1951 außer Dienst
1957 gestrichen
Grüße aus Österreich
Peter K.

www.forum-marinearchiv.de

Spee

Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

tirpitzpeter

Laut meines Bauplanes hat die SMS Komet 2 3,7er "Maxim" Maschinenkanonen dabei gehabt....
Nicht grad viel für ne Seeschlacht  :-D :-D

Gruß
Peter
"Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit, der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit"! (Rammstein)
"Ein formal stimmiges Produkt braucht keine Verzierung" (Ferdinand Porsche)

Spee

Servus,

habe von Richard die Erlaubnis bekommen, den Text hier einzustellen  :TU:) .

HMAS Una,built by Bremer Vulcan in 1911 .She was built as a Governors Yacht for the governor of German New Guinea where she was taken as a prize of war by the Australian Navy and used as a packet boat she was armed with three 4in guns and renamed H.M.A.S.UNA.

The Komet was not built as a naval vessel, and was classed as a yacht of 977 tons displacement, serving as the administrative vessel within German New Guinea. When war broke out on 4 August 1914 Acting Governor Haber was using the Komet to visit settlements on the mainland of New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelmsland). News of the war was received by the Komet's wireless; Haber hurried back to Rabaul and landed at Matupit on 14 August. Australian warships had already entered Simpson Harbour on a brief raid, so the Komet was sent away at once, to a bay she had used as an anchorage before, on the north coast of New Britain west of the Willaumez Peninsula. This bay her crew had unofficially named 'Komethafen'. For a few days she dodged about between Komethafen, the Witu Islands and points on the northwest coast of New Britain, then came back to Massawa Bay on the north coast of the Gazelle Peninsula and was commissioned into the German Navy. From there she went north to Angaur in the Palau Islands (part of Germany's Micronesian possessions), but later came south, calling at Durour Island and at Peterhaven in the Witu's before hiding again in Komethafen on 4th October.

Meanwhile the commander of the ANMEF, Colonel Holmes, was anxious to seize the Komet, as under the surrender terms of 17 September all property of the German administration was to come under his control. But Haber insisted that as the Komet had been commissioned into the German Navy, she was no longer the property of the colonial government, and he did not know where she was. A British trader, Stephen Whiteman, a long-term resident of German New Guinea, knew from his contacts with the New Guineans that the missing vessel often used Komethafen as an anchorage, and told Holmes that she would probably be found there. A smaller German government vessel, the Nusa, which had been seized at Kavieng, was hastily fitted with a naval 12-pounder gun and sent to Komethafen with a detachment of soldiers aboard. They took Whiteman as an interpreter, and a Japanese shipowner, Komine, who knew the area, also went with them.

By 10 October 1914 the Nusa was near Komethafen, and learned from local villagers that Komet was indeed at anchor there. At dawn next morning the Nusa steamed into the bay, taking the Komet's crew completely by surprise. Her captain was halfway through his morning shave when the leaders of the Australian expedition boarded his ship! So the Komet was captured without a shot being fired; escorted to Rabaul by the Nusa, she was there commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy as HMAS Una. After a refit at Garden Island naval Dockyard in Sydney Harbour, she served the Australian administrators of German New Guinea for the rest of the war.

She served in the RAN until paid off on 23.8.19, but was re-commissioned on 27.4.20 to serve as the official yacht for the inspection of the Australian fleet in Port Philip Bay by the Prince of Wales. Paid off again on 30.6.20 she was mothballed in Sydney.

On 27.1.25 she was sold to Captain Rose of the Williamstown Pilot Office and renamed Akuna. She remained in the pilot service until 1953: subsequent fate unknown.
Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

Spee

Servus,

Richard hat mir noch ein paar Informationen zukommen lassen. Great stuff  :TU:) !

A footnote to the Komet story is that on 12.5.15 Colonel J. Paton of ANMEF HQ Staff was court-martialled in Sydney on a charge of looting cutlery from the Komet. He admitted taking the items in a belief he had a right to mementoes. The court found him not guilty and he was honourably acquitted, a verdict that displeased WM (Billy) Hughes, the Federal Attorney-General. The incident did not affect Paton's career as he ended the war as Major General Paton. One other footnote of interest is the fate of the German Kaiser's yacht Hohenzollern, illustrated on the colonial postage stamps from around 1900. The last information heard was that it was a gambling den in international waters off the American eastern seaboard around 1930?

THE GERMAN YACHT KOMET by Robin Hide

Following up Dick Doyle's query in the last issue of Una Voce (Sept. 2003, No. 3, p. 33), Dick recounted that the German gunboat 'Comet' (more usually, 'Komet') was hidden at Witu Island at the start of WW I, and that he had been told it was subsequently towed back to Germany during the War. He asked for further details as, he noted later, he found that hard to believe.

The wartime history of the small ship (977 tons) is partly told in Chapter 8, 'The capture of the Komet', in MacKenzie, S. S. (1934). The Australians at Rabaul: The Capture and Administration of the German Possessions in the Southern Pacific. Volume X Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, pp. 127-137. The Komet was in fact the German Governor's new administrative yacht that managed to evade the Australian fleet that headed to Rabaul in early August 1914. In September, from the Pelew Islands in Micronesia, the Komet headed for Peterhaven on Witu Island, where it remained between at least 29 September and 4 October, 1914. (The Komet's movements between July-October 1914 are apparently described more fully in Vol. IX of the Official History, Chapter 4). It then crossed to the northern coast of West New Britain, and hid just west of Talasea.

After news of the Komet's presence reached Rabaul, the armed yacht Nusa (two guns, a 3-pounder, and a12 pounder), under Commdr. J.M.Jackson, with a small infantry force plus machine-gun under Lt.-Col Paton, was directed to search for and capture the Komet. The Komet was taken by surprise and surrendered on October 11th near Talasea. An account on the Paton website http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/~rmallett/Generals/paton.html describes Paton boarding "the Komet brandishing a revolver and took the ship by surprise, finding the captain shaving in his cabin. The entire crew of 57 then surrendered to Paton and the ship was taken to Rabaul and then Sydney as a prize." It also reports that Paton and other officers were subsequently court martialled, but acquitted, for souveniring items from the Komet!

MacKenzie cites Jackson's own account for the major role played by Komine (Isokichi), a leading Japanese businessman resident in Rabaul, in the search for and capture of the Komet. For a more detailed account, from Komine's perspective, readers should consult the most interesting paper by Hiromitsu Iwamoto (1996. "The impact of World War I on Japanese settlers in Papua New Guinea, 1914-1918". South Pacific Study, 16(2), 143-174). According to a note to the excellent photograph of the Komet included in MacKenzie's account (there is also a photograph of her in Frigates, Photofile No. 6 – see http://www.acay.com.au/~topmill/html/armed_forces.html), the ship was subsequently armed and commissioned as H.M.A.S. Una and stationed in New Guinea waters. At the end of 1918 the Una was sent to Darwin after a "rebellion" against Administrator Gilruth (http://www.epmm.com.au/defence1.htm).

Following the war, the Una was apparently sold into service as the pilot boat for the Port Phillip pilot service (renamed as the Akuna), and gave long service at this position with a "legend for rolling on wet grass"(?): she was finally broken up in Melbourne in 1955 (http://www.deansmarine.co.uk/Productpage/Komet.htm). However the source of the latter information (which sells model kits of the original ship, and includes technical details), also includes some other undocumented information about possible periods in Sydney and England. This however seems unlikely since the anchor of the Komet is now a memorial on the lawn of the foreshore reserve, Weroona Parade, at Queenscliff, Barwon, in Victoria. According to the official description (Victorian Memorials Database, Region Barwon, Record 30) -

The anchor of the German yacht Komet set at an angle in a concrete slab with a signboard attached which reads: 'Borough of Queenscliffe. This anchor was forged in Hamburg in 1911 for the German New Guinea Administrator's yacht Komet. The yacht was captured in New Guinea by Australian forces in 1914 to become H.M.A.S. Una - the Port Phillip Pilot Service acquired the vessel in 1925 and renamed her Akuna. She saw service in Victoria from 1925 to 1954. Her wheel is installed in Wyuna, donated by the Port Phillip Pilot Service'.

While this summary leaves a few loose ends, it doesn't appear that the Komet was towed back to Germany during the War
Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

Alex Shenec

Hallo.

Die Fotografien der "Komet" und "Akuna".

Schöne Grüße
Alex

Spee

Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

t-geronimo

Die sind wirklich phantastisch!  :-o
Gruß, Thorsten

"There is every possibility that things are going to change completely."
(Captain Tennant, HMS Repulse, 09.12.1941)

Forum MarineArchiv / Historisches MarineArchiv

Spee

Eigentlich bist du schuld an dem Fund, T-G!
Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

t-geronimo

Ja bei flickr gibts unglaublich viele Marinefotos, wenn man sich mal die Zeit nimmt zu stöbern.
Gruß, Thorsten

"There is every possibility that things are going to change completely."
(Captain Tennant, HMS Repulse, 09.12.1941)

Forum MarineArchiv / Historisches MarineArchiv

Spee

Genau. War ein sehr guter Tip von dir. Danke  !
Servus

Thomas

Suicide Is Not a War-Winning Strategy

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