SOUTH SEA VIKINGS

Otago Witness, Issue 3349, 22 May 1918, Page 6

SOUTH SEA VIKINGS

CRUISE OF THE WOLF. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WAIRUNA. A SPLENDID STORY. (Fbom Oob Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 19. The romance of the Wairuna was played through practically in New Zealand waters. Almost at the moment when Mr Bell was petitioning Parliament for consideration in respect of his having kept the flag flying at Sunday Island, the island was being used by the Germans as a base to prey en Now Zealand commerce, and was the scene of one tragedy at least of which we shall probably never hear the full story. Most of the following narrative was given _to me by Mr T. El Rees, the second officer, who has just returned to London by way of Norway; by Mr R. Donovan, the cook (who formerly rode for Sir William Ruseell's stable); and by Mrs Agnee Mackenzie (Wellington), the stewardess of the Matunga. The Wairuna left Auckland for San Francisco at 11 p.m. on May 31, and shaped the usual course north-west across the Pacifio. About 3.30 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, June 2, as ehe was closing with Sunday Island, the largest and most northerly of the Kermadecs, a steamer was sighted, evidently at anchor, off the northern side of the island, where Mr Bell Las his homestead. She was about four mile 3 distant. The Wairuna kept on her courso, and about 20 minutes later thoso on board saw to their astonishment a seaplane rise from the watdr and soar towards them. The plane had no marks at all, and, flying low over tho it dropped a message on her deck warning the captain that if he tried to use his wireless he would be bombed. The steamer meanwhile had hoisted tho German colours and begun to move, and, the Wairuna having been stopped in obedience to orders, a boarding party camo across and took possession. THE GAME WAS UP. " I knew at onco they were Huns when I saw tho seaplane," said Mr Rees, whoso experience dates back at least as far as tho Dardanelles. Having that inkling of trouble, ho set to work to pick up as many as possible of tho New Zealand newspapers on board, and to destroy them, so as'to prevent tho Huns getting moro information than could bo helped. Unfortunately for himself, there were still half a dozen or so left, and they wore greedily seized by the Germans—who had been out of touch with civilisation for half a year,—and digested for tho benefit of tho intelligence branch. Tho Wairuna was taken in closo to tho island and ordered to anchor near tho raider, which they now knew to be tho Wolf, and that night the officers and the wireless operator were taken off. The Huns wore delighted to get such a well-found and well-provided ship. Not only was thero ample coal and provisions for tho transpacific voyage, but tho cargo comprised a good many things they were in need of

after their long tramp at sea; and they looked with greedy eyes at the 42 live sheep in pens on the deck. In their long cruise, it seemed, they had been on tho Now Zealand coast before, and they had also been as far south as the Antipodes. On the following morning (Sunday, June 3) tho sea "was too rough to do much in tho way of working cargo, and both ships moved round to the leo side of the island. There they wore lashed together, and commenced straightway transferring coal, fresh water, and stores, and 14 bags of mails—more grist for the- Intelligence Department. On the 4th the captain was taken on board tho Wolf, and he and the other officers transferred most of their luggago to the raider. On tho sth _ and 6th all hands wore working day and night, and tho ships bumped together very violently in tho heavy swell. It was on tho latter day that tho sheep were transferred, and eight of them were so badly injured in the operation that they had to bo killed forthwith. On the 7th the sea was so rough that tho vessels moved round again to tho other side of the island, and for two days no work could bo done. On the 9th they made a complete circuit of the island, looking for calm water, but without success; and on the 10th again it was too rough to do anything. PROPER IRISHMEN. " None of the prisoners," Mr Rees told me, " would volunteer to help in transferring- cargo, though it was put to them. There vvero two Irishmen in the crew, and the Germans tried hard to persuade them, telling them that Germany was tho friend of Ireland, and that tho fate of Casement was an example of what tho English did to Irishmen. " ' Tho English didn't do half enough to Gasemsnt.' was tho reply. 'lf we had had hold of him we would have done much more than England did.' "With this satisfaction tho Huns left the subject alone." On tho 11th it was rough again, and on tho 12th iu was so bad that both vessels had to put to sea. They came back at 9 p.m. on the 14th, and, anchoring very close together, resumed work on the following morning. On the 16th all hands were taken off the Wairuna, and she was got ready for sinking. / SPURLOS VERSENKT. The whole security of the raider being dependent on covering up her traces, great care was taken to prevent the wreckage floating away. The cabin doors" were carefully nailed 'up and their hatches battened down, and the tanks and lifeboats destroyed. As tho vessel was being taken out to sea a littlo American schooner was sighted, and tho work had to be stopped to chaso her with the seaplane. Sho was duly captured, and a prize crow put on board, and sho remained at sea for the night. On tho morning of Sunday, June 17, the Wairuna was finally taken out to her doom, an event which all tht> prisoners were allowed on deck to witness.

At 5-30 a.m., when tho Wolf was about 1000 yj»xls off, one of tho bombs was set»>: to explode. Tho only visible result Was that tho Wairuna sank about a foot deeper in tho water, at which level sho remained for fully an hour. Then at about 400 yards tho Wolf commenced bombarding tho vessel amidships. Tho first

few shells had very little effect. They struck about the waterline, evidently just clearing the engine tops. The 'Germans were poor gunners, for some of the shells even at that distance fell short and others' went clean over the mark.

The Wairuna took a slight list, and there was a pause in the firing, but her position did not seem to change. The Wolf steamed right round her, but got no satisfaction. She was apparently very little damaged. More shots were fired at her amidships, and one brought a great mass of flame, shooting up from the engine room, but it died down, and still apparently the Wairuna was seaworth3\ Then by aiming at tho bulkhead between numbers one and two holds the gunners .sot the cargo on fire. She gradually listed over to port, burning heavily, and eventualy turning over on her side, she sank at 2.45 p.m. As sho went down quite a lot of wreckage broke away from the hatches, and one of the derricks also floated off. Having spent a good six hours and 16 heavy shells disposing of the Wairuna, the raider turned her attention to the schooner, which had now returned. She was the Winslow, with a quantity of coal and fire bricks, always a welcome find for baseless outlaws. A CALL FROM THE WAITOTARA. While working the Winslow's cargo at Sunday Island the Wolf picked up on June 18 a wireless call from the Waitotara, saying she was on fire, and that all hands had left the ship, and a later call that a French steamer had riicked up the crew. The Winslow's cargo kept the Wolf occupied until June 22. " She was the first [wooden victim the Wolf had oaught,'] said Mr Rees, "and thoy had a great job to sink her. They could only blow her to bits. They put four big bombs on board and set her on fire, and they had to fire 39 shells at her boforo thoy could polish her off."

Mr Rees tells of what looks like a tragedy that occurred while the Wolf was working cargo at the Kermadees. Two of the crew of the Turritella, a victim of the earlier stages of the Wolf's cruise, were a New Zealander named, I think, Steers, of Port Chalmers, who was second engineer, and the chief officer (Cleland). They had determined to make an attempt to escape, and Mr Rees and other prisoners assisted them. _ Steers and Cleland were both strong swimmers and felt confident of gaining the shore, which was two miles off. But as they were kept securely below at night, it was essentia] that they should get out of the ship in daylight. Under pretext of fishing for sharks a party of prisoners got a strong rope-lino over the counter, and down this both men made their escape while the sentries were not looking. They had matches securely sealed in bottles, and felt pretty certain they would find, all the food they required on the island. But until it was dark enough to commence swimming they had to remain a-hiding under the counter of the ship. Though the Kermadees aro in a warm latitude, it was winter, and a choppy sea was running. Moreover, there were no lights on the island. Nothing was afterwards seen or heard of the two adventurers. Time may sho\v whether either of them reached the shore or whether their heroicendeavour ended their life.

MINES ROUND NEW ZEALAND. The day before the Wairuna was ■ captured a boatful of British prisoners from previous victims got BCOlb of fresh fish from a day's fishing with lines. On finishing up at the Kermadecs, and failing in her hope of cutting off the Niagara, the Wolf proceeded to lay some mines between North Cape and the Three Kings, and then went right down the coast and sowed more mines in Cook Strait. This activity, which was quite unsuspected Until the Wolf's return homo this month, puts a now light on the blowing up oi tho Port Konibla off Farewell Spit last September.

On Juno 27 Mr Rees and Mr Donovan, the cook, got their last glimpse of New Zealand, for on that day the raider was in sight of Mount. Cook. On July 9 another small American schooner, tho Beluga, fell a victim. The captain had on board his wife (a native of Newcastle, New South I Wales) and their six-year-old daughter; ! and it was a pathetic sight to those already close captives to see the little girl, stand- ! ing on the after-deck waving her handkerchief as the strange steamer approached. As the Beluga was being 'taken possession of smoke was seen on the horizon, and the Wolf, not wishing to bo caught redhanded, hurriedly put a prize crew on board and made off. The strange steamer had three masts and a red funnel with '< black ton, and it was thought she might be ~the Sugar Company's steamer running between Fiji and Sydney. She passed within two miles of the schooner and signalled her, little knowing that she was in charge of a i German prize crew. Two days later, havi ing rejoined company, the schooner was 1 despoiled of what she was worth and sunk with bombs. Another American schooner, the Enchor, was captured at a later dato and also destroyed. It was about a month later that the Burns Philp steamer Matunga was captured off Rabaul and carried off to an island near New Guinea, where the cargo was ransacked and tho Wolf replenished. " It was terrible to see. her being sunk." said Mrs Mackenzie, tho stewardess. " She was our only home, and I felt like jumping overboard to get to her." TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

Mrs Mackenzie, who comes from Wellington, protested vigorously to the German commander against women being made prisoners —thero were now a dozen of them in the Wolf. But he replied that women- were making munitions, and therefore their capture was quite legitimate. It had been thought possible that owing to the American captain having his wife and child on board ho might release the schooner Beluga, but the whole keynote of raiding success is to leave no traces. Hence all the ships were destroyed and their crews taken away to Germany. What Mr Rees and his companions can tell, through the lucky chaneo of the Igotz Mendi running into a fog'in the throat of the Kattegat, is a serious inconvenience for future German raiders.

Mr Rees served in a transport which took Australian artillery to the landing at Anzac. He was afterwards in the New Zealand meat liner Ashburton when she was torpedoed, and by a stroke of misfortuno his account of his experiences on that occasion appeared in the very copies of the New Zealand Herald which were found by the Huns on

the Wairuna. It was duly underlined in red and shown to him by "the Hun commander, who particularly wished to know what " barbarians" were. The treatment meted out to Mr Rees during nine months' captivity was probably dictated in some measure by annoyance at this narrative. Of the six months he spent in the Wolf he was most of the time in the hold with 162 other captives. The food was co bad that he was over and over again sent to hospital, and photographs of some of the prisoners show brawny giants reduced to thin, haggard skeletons. Mr Rees pleaded that if he were kept_ under such conditions he must inevitably die, and asked that he should be transferred to the Igotz Mendi. The commander knew that he had been keeping a diary, and replied significantly that ho knew too much to be-let out of the Wolf. However, he got so bad that he was at length transferred, with the women and some others, to the Spanish steamer. Here the change of food and the fine, wholesome bread, baked by Donovan, worked a ,;rreat change, and ho gradually recovered strength. THE VOYAGE HOME. The ships kept in company to a certain degree. That is to say, the Igotz Mendi kept her oourse, and the Wolf communicated with her every few days; and' so they made their westing to the Cape and their northing through the Atlantic. One day the captives were delighted to seo what looked like a four-funnelled cruiser only a few miles away develop into two ships, apparently transports from America, but both sides passed without any sign of recognition or inquiry. •Cbminjr to high latitudes, the Igotzs Mendi hid one boiler out of action —due, it is said, to the patriotic care of the Spanish engineers,—and another in a bad way, so that she could make only a couple of knots an hour. Yet she rounded Iceland by the north—the Wolf going south about, —and staggered across the ever-vigi-lant patrol into the North Sea, and thus was in Norwegian waters. It seemed to the prisoners that Germany was their only prospect. The Wolf got home to Kiel on Sunday. The Igotz Mendi, whose prize crew had orobably been too long away to know of changed lights, mistook the route, of the Skaw for the. Spit, and piled her hull comfortably on a friendly neutral I believe the Wolf was one of four vessels that tried to make the open sea in November. 1916. She sailed under Swedish colours, and it is understood ehe was held for two days under the guns of tile Avenger, off Faroe, where the weather was too dirty to allow of communication. Then she was allowed to proceed. The Avenger was the Ao-'tea-roa, a new boat built for the Union Steam Ship Company to run with the Niagara, and she was officered chiefly by New Zealanders. She was sunk by torpedo last June.