SEA RAIDER WOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 3

SEA RAIDER WOLF

LOWLY FATE DECREED. SHIP SOLD AS SCRAP IRON. An ignominious fate has been, decreed for the notorious —or famous —German sea raider the Wolf, the vessel which harried the shipping of the seven seas during the days of war, but which, of later years, carried cargo and passengers under the tricolour of France, and by the name of Antinous. Now she has been sold to Italian ship-breakers and will pass ingloriously from her almost legendary sphere to become a heap of prosaio scrap iron. As a result of the sale France wil be £3OOO richer, but the sea will be cheated of its legitimate toll—the shell of a brave ship.

The . Wolf spent 15 months .in the Pacific Ocean during the war sinking ships and laying mines in the track of shipping on the New Zealand and Australian coasts. She is a vessel of 7133' tons gross and was built in Germany in 1913 and named the Wachtfels. In 1916 she was converted from a merchantman to an auxiliary cruiser and was armed with a battery of seven 6.9 guns and several torpedo tubes. She was also fitted with a telescope funnel and masts. Disguised as a peaceful merchantman and flying a neutral country’s flag she slipped through the cordon of warships guarding the North Sea and then proceeded to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. In the Arabian Sea she captured the British-Imperial Oil Company’s steamer Turritella, 5528 tons, which was an ex-German vessel, formerly named the Gutterfels, and was also a sister ship to the Wolf.

Other* vessels captured by the Wolf in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean were the Jumra, 4152 tons; Wordsworth,' 3509 tons; Dee, 1169 tons; Wairuna, 3947 tons; Wenslow, 567 tons; Beluga, 508 tons; Matanga, 1608 tons; Hitachi Maru, 6557 tons; Igotz Mendi, 4648 tons. The Wairuna was a Union Company .steamer and was en route from Auckland to 1 San Francisco. She was captured near the Kermadec Group after the Wolf had been hiding at Sunday Island. The first the Wairuna’s crew knew of the nearness of the Wolf was when a seaplane from the raider dropped a message to stop or be sunk by gunfire. The Wairuna stopped and was boarded by the Wolf crew. After coal and provisions had been transferred from the steamer te the raider, the Wairuna was sunk. From Sunday Island the Wolf proceeded. to the vicinity of the Hauraki Gulf and then laid a minefield in the shipping track toward the North Cape and down the west coast as far as Cook Strait. More mines were afterwards laid along the Australian coast, in the vicinity of Cape Gabo. After leaving Cape Gabo the Wolf captured the Burns-Philp steamer Matanga and then the raider entered the Indian Ocean and captured the Japanese steamer Ailachi Marti, containing a large quantity of foodstuffs, which were transferred. to the raider before the prize was sunk.

The Wolf next captured, the Italian steamer Igotz Mendi, loaded with coaL A prize crew was put on board the Italian vessel and she escorted the Wolf in the Indian Ocean and kept the raider supplied, with coal fuel. Eventually a number of prisoners, the crews of- the vessels which had been captured, were transferred to the Igotz Mendi and the two vessels proceeded to Europe. The Wolf arrived back safely at Kiel but the Igotz Mendi was wrecked on the Spanish coast without loss of life.

The minefield laid by the Wolf on tho New Zealand coast sank two steamers, and others were mined off Australia. The minefield off Farewell Spit was responsible for the sinking of the Commonwealth and Dominion Line steamer, Port Kembla, which struck one of the mines on September 17, 1917, when she was proceeding from Sydney to Wellington. The vessel sank after the explosion, but not before the crew was able to take to the boats. Less fortunate was the Hud-dart-Parker steamer Wimmera, which was mined near North Cape on June 26, 1918, and sank so quickly that 26 of the 151 persons on board were drowned. The mines laid by the Wolf on the Australian coast also brought about destruction of shipping. Vessels mined included the Federal Line steamer Cumberland, the barque Handa Isle and the Sydney collier Undalla. Other vessels mysteriously disappeared, after leaving Australian ports, and their loss in ft number of cases is thought to have been due to the Wolf’s mines.