Search for the Wairuna
It was 2 of June 1917 and World War One had been in progress for nearly three years. New Zealand had taken German Samoa at the start of the war, the Australians had taken New Guinea and our Japanese allies had knocked the Germans out their colony in China and taken the Marshal and Caroline Islands. The German Pacific Squadron had met its doom at the Falkland Islands. War was now confined to the Middle East, Europe and German East Africa. The Pacific was a quiet and peaceful area now.
The Wairuna had loaded its cargo of animal hides, flax, kauri gum, coal and some live sheep in Auckland a couple of days earlier and had left on a direct route to San Francisco which took her on a course through the Kermadec Islands rather than on a course out to the west had she been stopping in the islands.
Approaching Raoul Island from the south, the crew on the bridge of the Wairuna could make out the mast of a ship anchored to the northeast of the island. Rees, the Second Officer suggested a raider, but Saunders, the Captain, thought this ridiculous and suggested it was a ship loading copra. So the Wairuna maintained her course and an opportunity to send out one radio message and possibly end the cruise of one of the most successful raiders of WW1 was lost.
Wairuna lost sight of this other ship as she passed close to Raoul Island to the west, but it came back into view as she passed the island and could see it anchored by the Herald Islets. Suddenly a roar from an aircrafts engine drowned out the thump of the ships engine and an explosion quickly followed near the front the ship. All eyes went skyward and it appeared the two seater bi-plane was so low it just missed the top of Wairuna’s mast and black crosses could be seen on the lower wings of the aircraft, while the observer could be seen dangling another bomb over the side ready to drop.
Captain Saunders told the wireless operator not to touch his transmission key. At that point a seaman ran up to Saunders with a message attached to a sandbag which the plane’s observer had dropped onto the fore deck. It read, “Do not use your wireless. Stop your engines. Take orders from the cruiser or you will be bombed.” The seaplane then dropped another bomb just ahead of the ship to emphasize the order.
Looking across to the other ship, several of her guns could be seen trained on the Wairuna and a boarding party was already on there way.
After the capture, the Wairuna was taken closer to where the German raider Wolf was anchored, and Wairuna tied up alongside. Over the next two weeks all cargo useful to the ‘Wolf’, especially the coal was put aboard. On the 17th of June Wairuna was taken out of the anchorage into deeper water to be sunk. Some time bombs failed to sink her and so the Wolf’s 5.9 inch guns opened up putting holes into the waterline. After a couple hours the Wairuna finally rolled over to port and sank. Cargo to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds went to the bottom.
-------
Had the Wairuna sunk immediately she would have gone into very deep water, however, because it took several hours to sink and knowing the weather conditions on the day, there is a possibility that she ended up in water shallow enough to find and possibly dive.
In March 2007 a team of searchers will be aboard Heritage Expeditions ship Spirit of Enderby, including Bill Day of Auckland Islands General Grant fame to attempt to find the Wairuna and document its current location and condition. Finding the ship is the primary goal, and with a bit of luck diving will also be possible. In the four days we are there, we hope to get a enough material to include the story in a series of shipwreck documentaries focusing on wrecks deep enough to come under the tech diving category. The cargo of the Wairuna was mostly biodegradable, so this is not a treasure hunt, but an opportunity to delve into a small part of New Zealand history that is little known about.
The Wairuna is an interesting ship as it’s the first of four ships to be sunk in New Zealand waters by military action during WW1, well after the Pacific war was over. Also it’s part of the fascinating voyage of S.M.S Wolf, the only enemy ship to enter New Zealand waters during WW1.
Many of you will by now be thinking, the Wairuna has already been found and dived because I read it in the book ‘Divers Tales’. Fortunately for us, because we do want to be the first to find the Wairuna, this story is fiction. This has been confirmed by the author.
