When the Kriegsmarine visited Gisborne and Napier in 1945

[kiwithrottlejockey]

I'm currently reading a fascinating book about a Type IX U-boat, U-862, of the Kriegsmarine which visited the waters of Gisborne and Napier in 1945.

“U-boat in New Zealand Waters: U862's War Patrol off Gisborne and Napier in 1945” by Gerald Shone was published in 2016.

The book is available to order online from Unity Books, or from Fishpond. I purchased my copy from Hedley's Bookshop in Masterton.

The U-boat actually fired a torpedo at the cargo ship Pukeko as it left the Port of Napier, but the torpedo missed and the U-boat slipped away into the darkness after the captain feared they had been seen.

[Dave Homewood]

I think that is the U-boat that the captain of wrote a book too. I have the book somewhere, but haven't read it yet. Pearce 'Darkie' Dunn very nearly saved the U-boat for preservation but the RNZAF stepped in and scuppered his plans, and it was sunk.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

They sneaked right into the Port of Gisborne during the night of 15th January 1945 for a look around to see if any ships were there, but there were only fishing boats. While in there, the tide went out and the U-boat got stuck on a sandbank, literally a stone's throw from downtown Gisborne. However, a sea-fog had drifted in that night night, so they weren't seen and when the tide began coming back in, they were able to slip out of the harbour and head down the coast to the port at Waikokopu, then on to Napier. The people of Gisborne didn't have a clue that a German U-boat was stuck in their boat harbour for several hours.

[pjw4118]

The crew should have got off and gone to the local dance ,, they probably wouldnt have been be noticed !
But why , so late in the war would Germany invest in such a mission with little chance of a spectacular result , , Sydney maybe , but why.
Maybe to drop off Fourth Reich seeds, perhaps thats were Rocket Lab came from. And now for the real story .....

[zkdex]

It would seem that U-862 came over to NZ to avoid the Australian military heat following the sinking of a ship off New South Wales on Christmas Day 1944. It was apparently intended to patrol the southern and eastern coasts of Australia, working in conjunction with three other U-boats as follows.
U-168 was to work the south and southwest coasts of Australia. Set sail 4 (or 5?) Oct 1944, sunk 2 days later in the Java Sea by HNLMS Zwaardvisch (P322).
U-537 was to work off Darwin and the northeast coast. Set sail 8 (or 9?) Nov 1944, sunk 2 days later in the Java Sea by USS Flounder (SS-251).
U-196 was to refuel U-boats returning to Europe, then work the southwest coast. Set sail 30 Nov 1944 (some sources say 11 Nov), then disappeared. Officially believed to have hit a mine in the Sunda Straits, 1 Dec 1944. [However, some claim this sub met its end in May 1945 in murky waters off the Kaipara Coast!! As I wish to avoid idle speculation, I'll say no more].

Of these 4 subs, only U-862 was able to fulfil its mission, albeit 2 ships sunk in a very long patrol (18 Nov 1944 to 15 Feb 1945), and a very lucky miss for a small NZ ship off Napier!! If all four subs had been able to "cut loose" who knows what havoc could have been created. Thankfully, both Australia and New Zealand were spared those consequences.

[davidd]

Believe it or not, but the Australians signalled New Zealand on subject of the likely presence of these submarines in NZ waters in near future, and seemed to know their nationality, so it would hardly have been a surprise when one turned up on this side of the Tasman.

The fact that the RNZN and RNZAF never spotted it was not so surprising either, as we had the bulk of our anti-sub forces in the operational zones of the Pacific at this time. Nevertheless, our "home forces", such as they were, were keeping a sharp lookout, and their ears to the ground. It would only require one small slip, or just plain bad luck on the part of the German skipper to give the game away, so he was naturally cautious during the one attack he actually delivered in our waters (a successful attack by a submarine in patrolled waters usually causes an uproar in the HQ of the local responsible anti-sub command).

The fact remains that these cruising German subs were operating in an ocean relatively crowded with Allied anti-sub forces which is probably why they chose to patrol areas which they considered to be so far from the front-lines as to be only lightly covered by Allied patrols, which was largely true. The home defences around NZ would comprise what was left of our coastal radar chain (most of it had already been dismantled), a small fleet of sixteen HDMLs (as featured on a currently running threads on this Board, some of which would always be out of service for routine maintenance), plus one home-based Ventura squadron at Whenuapai (15 PV-1s), the Bomber OTU at Ohakea with another 12 PV-1s which could back up the operational squadron, and the aircraft of the School of Navigation and Reconnaissance at New Plymouth (about 18 obsolete Ansons plus two Hudsons).

Further numbers of Venturas and Catalinas could have been ferried south from Fiji if thought essential at short notice, including those of 3 OTU. Aircraft of the training units could all be equipped with weapons at fairly short notice, and among their staff and pupils were enough experienced hands to constitute a reasonably useful anti-sub force, if rather slow (and short-legged in case of the Ansons).

So far as I know, the RNZAF in NZ did not have immediate access to the Allied electric homing torpedo ("Fido") but a few of these could easily have been ferried to NZ if the South Pacific (United States) operational commander thought that the possibility of a kill might reasonably be in the offing.

Of course the Australians had a far larger anti-sub force at their disposal (and an awful lot more sea to patrol), but this hardly matters in the evaluation of what NZ could deploy.

Nevertheless, the destruction of two of those four U-boats within (apparently) days of departure from their base demonstrates how vulnerable they were in waters thought by them to offer good hunting at possibly light risk, and the third may well have succumbed to Allied mines as pointed out above. Their ability to "cut loose" and reap a large harvest of Allied ships seems pretty problematic to me at this very late stage of the war when the Allies had to all intents and purposes a stranglehold over all the oceans and seas that mattered to them.

And I am with zkdex in not offering any opinion on sunken German subs off our coast, but Board members who know me could easily guess what that might be.

David D

[kiwithrottlejockey]

In Gerald Shone's book, it states that the shore defences had only been removed from Gisborne a couple of weeks before the visit of U-862. In addition to coastal gun batteries, the beaches of Gisborne were festooned with coils of barbed wire and various obstacles to impede a landing by hostile forces, but the citizens of Gisborne had been demanding their removal for more than a year, because they wanted their beaches back for recreational purposes.