Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 14, 2006 22:19:04 GMT 12
This is slightly off-topic but is pre-1939, and about military aviation in NZ.
Did you know that a German aircraft overflew New Zealand on several occasions for reconnaissance duties in 1917?
The first and only mention i had ever saw of this was in Ross Macpherson and Ross Ewings' excellent book 'The History of New Zealand Aviation'.
In that book is a photo of the plane, a Friedrichshafen FF 33E seaplane of the German Navy. It was carried aboard the German raider 'Wolf', a boat that sunk or captured 28 ships in the Pacific during its 15 month cruise.
In April 1917 it sailed into NZ waters, and the book states that its plane may have been sighted over Hawkes Bay as a number of reports were made that cannot have been a NZ-based plane.
Today I finally found some more information, in an article from the New Zealand Observer magazine, dated 24th of February 1938. the article was written by someone under the suedonym of W.A.T., but he was the Chief Censor in NZ in WWI at the time this happened, and so was aware of many secrets going on during the war which he was now, in 1938, able to disclose in an interesting series of articles.
He says the ship and it's plane, "Wolfchen", or "Wolf's Cub" in English, made there way along the West Coast of the South island and made several flights over that region, and over Invercargill.
The ship then went to Stewart Island and actually stopped there in a bay to undergo a refit! At this time no NZ ships were using Foveaux Strait, though previously there had been a Bluff-Melbourne steamer service which had discontinued using that waterway luckily.
The ship returned to Germany in June 1917.
What a remarkable story that an enemy ship could be in our waters for 2-3 months, and it's floatplane flew over land several times, even over a major settlement of Invercargill, and possibly the Hawkes Bay.
The Ewing/Macpherson book says this was probably the first plane ever used on a combat ship. It carried two crew and probably some bombs.
It was certainly used to capture ships, one account of the NZ ship Wairuna is detailed in the 1938 article where the plane circled and then dropped a note to heave to, and prepare for boarding. With such a threat above and from the ship, they had no choice but to surrender.
Do any real/replica's/remnants of the Friedrichshafen FF 33E exist anywhere?
I have stated before it would be great for the Omaka Collection or someone else to create a replica of the German WWI Albatross that came to NZ. This is another fascinating aircraft that I reckon would make an amazing replica, and interesting museum piece for this country.
This is what it looked like in 3-view
hem.passagen.se/hankri/sk2_ritn.jpg
For the modellers, there is one available in small scale and that 841 code marking in the drawing is actually the very one, "Wolf Cub"
sierrascale.home.insightbb.com/72wwi.htm
Did you know that a German aircraft overflew New Zealand on several occasions for reconnaissance duties in 1917?
The first and only mention i had ever saw of this was in Ross Macpherson and Ross Ewings' excellent book 'The History of New Zealand Aviation'.
In that book is a photo of the plane, a Friedrichshafen FF 33E seaplane of the German Navy. It was carried aboard the German raider 'Wolf', a boat that sunk or captured 28 ships in the Pacific during its 15 month cruise.
In April 1917 it sailed into NZ waters, and the book states that its plane may have been sighted over Hawkes Bay as a number of reports were made that cannot have been a NZ-based plane.
Today I finally found some more information, in an article from the New Zealand Observer magazine, dated 24th of February 1938. the article was written by someone under the suedonym of W.A.T., but he was the Chief Censor in NZ in WWI at the time this happened, and so was aware of many secrets going on during the war which he was now, in 1938, able to disclose in an interesting series of articles.
He says the ship and it's plane, "Wolfchen", or "Wolf's Cub" in English, made there way along the West Coast of the South island and made several flights over that region, and over Invercargill.
The ship then went to Stewart Island and actually stopped there in a bay to undergo a refit! At this time no NZ ships were using Foveaux Strait, though previously there had been a Bluff-Melbourne steamer service which had discontinued using that waterway luckily.
The ship returned to Germany in June 1917.
What a remarkable story that an enemy ship could be in our waters for 2-3 months, and it's floatplane flew over land several times, even over a major settlement of Invercargill, and possibly the Hawkes Bay.
The Ewing/Macpherson book says this was probably the first plane ever used on a combat ship. It carried two crew and probably some bombs.
It was certainly used to capture ships, one account of the NZ ship Wairuna is detailed in the 1938 article where the plane circled and then dropped a note to heave to, and prepare for boarding. With such a threat above and from the ship, they had no choice but to surrender.
Do any real/replica's/remnants of the Friedrichshafen FF 33E exist anywhere?
I have stated before it would be great for the Omaka Collection or someone else to create a replica of the German WWI Albatross that came to NZ. This is another fascinating aircraft that I reckon would make an amazing replica, and interesting museum piece for this country.
This is what it looked like in 3-view
hem.passagen.se/hankri/sk2_ritn.jpg
For the modellers, there is one available in small scale and that 841 code marking in the drawing is actually the very one, "Wolf Cub"
sierrascale.home.insightbb.com/72wwi.htm
