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NZS Amokura

HMS SPARROW The Sparrow had a long and interesting history. She was launched in 1889 as the gunboat Goldfinch. Upon commissioning in 1890 she was renamed Sparrow and reclassified as a three-masted auxiliary Barquentine. In addition to her square rigging, she was also powered by a pair of steam engines. Her main armament consisted of 6 x 4" guns. The Sparrow was sold to the New Zealand Navy in 1906 and subsequently renamed Amokura.

HMS SPARROW was a 6 gun Screw Gun Boat First Class of 805 tons which "appears" to have been building at the time (1890), as only the Engineer and Gunner are onboard and there is a mention of The Greenock Foundry Company. This would presumably have been on the Clyde in Scotland?

In 1893 the Philomel took part in the Bohemie Creek expedition, and three years later, in company with HMS Sparrow (later the New Zealand training ship Amokura) and other ships, she bombarded the palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar which had been seized by a rebel chief. In 1897 the Philomel saw service in the Benin expedition on the west coast of Africa.

participated in the war in 1896 between Zanzibar and Great Britain [1]

took part in hydrographic surveying.[2]


Contents

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zanzibar Courage
  2. ^ Kinahan, Jill (1992) By command of their Lordships Namibia Archaeological Trust Windhoek




Alexander Turnbull

  • McCormick, E H (1961) The Fascinating Folly
  • McCormick, E H (1974) Alexander Turnbull: his life, his circle, his collections
  • Turnbull, A H (1871-1946) Papers(MSS). Alexander Turnbull Library.


TURNBULL, Alexander Horsburgh

Wealthy Wellington merchant who gifted his private library to the nation when he died in 1918. His library contained around 55,000 books; and manuscripts, photographs, paintings and sketches. It forms the heart of the Alexander Turnbull Library as it is known today.



Boom defences

HMS Formidable passes through a gate in the Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom in 1945
HMS Formidable passes through a gate in the Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom in 1945

Boom defences

Definition: A bar, chain or other obstruction stretched across a waterway to obstruct navigation - English heritage thesaurus[1]


"Boom defence was something of a misnomer, for nets rather than boomsc were now used to defend the harbours and estuaries. The nets were made of links rather like chain mail and consisted of three main types. Anti boat booms were shallow and were for protection against torpedo boats. Anti-torpedo booms were were to guard against torpedoes that might be launched outside the anchorage; and ant-submarine booms were much deeper and stronger than the others. They were prepared on shore with the booms that held them up and the anchors and chains which in turn fixed them in place. They were loaded onto netlayers, mostly converted from paddle steamers or small ferries with a wide open deck aft to stow the nets. Meanwhile small boats laid out boughs to mark the position, and netlaying began."[2]

Boom defence vessels could also serve as boom gate vessels, with gear to open and shut the boom to allow access.

[edit] Boom defence vessels

HMAS Kangaroo in 1940
HMAS Kangaroo in 1940

Boom defence vessels played the tedious but important role of tending the anti-submarine boom stretched across harbour-mouths.

Boom defence vessels are distinctive in appearance,with long horns projecting beyond the bows and rounded sterns to facilitate the handling of nets,booms,buoys,cable and other impedimenta necessary to provide a barrier to protect harbours from raiding craft and submarines.

[edit] Boom defences in Britain

Just prior to and during WWII the Admiralty produced four classes of purpose-built boom defence vessels as follows.

Class Built Dates BRT Armament Speed Notes
Dunnet class 1[3] 1936 1x3" AA gun 10 knots
Net class 10[4] 1938 605 1x3" AA gun 11.5 knots
Bar class 71[5] 1939-40 730 1x3" AA gun 12 knots
Pre class 5[6] 1944 1x3" AA gun. 2 20mm AA 14 knots

However, boom defence vessels were often commercial trawlers or merchant ships requisitioned for war and sent to the dockyards for conversion. In Britain the Boom Defence Service was considered a separate manning division with 9,000 ratings in September, 1944.

[edit] Boom defences in Australia

The Sydney defences were instrumental in foiling the attack by Japanese midget submarines in 1942.[7]

[edit] Darwin

Between late 1941 and early 1942 Darwin underwent a significant metamorphosis, rapidly emptying of civilians and becoming an almost solely military town. Yet, with the end of hostilities the situation just as rapidly reversed and much of the detail of Darwin's wartime history was soon forgotten.[8] A number of publications tell the story of the war in Northern Australia, but they deal mainly with actions or events. Details of fixed defences have either been omitted or mentioned only peripherally along with a particular incident. This was the case with Darwin's Harbour defences.[9] Darwin had the longest boom defence in the world. Today, many Darwinians will proudly tell you that an anti-submarine boom net that stretched across the harbour was six kilometres long, and the longest floating net in the world. But, very few of them ever saw the flotation buoys that supported the net, and fewer still knew what was below the surface of the water. Similarly unknown were the submarine indicator loops that lay on the seabed and warned of approaching ships or submarines, and the part played by ASDIC (Sonar), fitted to ships in the defence of Darwin Harbour.[10] This article attempts to throw some light on the anti-submarine boom net, the indicator loops, ASDIC and the Port War Signal Station (PWSS) at Dudley Point, all of which played a vital part in the defence of Darwin.



[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zanzibar Courage
  2. ^ Kinahan, Jill (1992) By command of their Lordships Namibia Archaeological Trust Windhoek

[edit] Reference

[edit] External links


[edit] Fixed Harbour Defense

There are five fixed defenses used in detecting a submarine attempting to enter a harbor:

  • The indicator loop
  • The controlled mine loop
  • The harbor defense listening gear
  • The indicator net
  • Supersonic set for boom gate vessels

The indicator loop is a warning device, but the controlled mine loop provides a lethal weapon as well as a warning device. Both are operated by magnetic influence. They will probably be de-energized while channel is being swept by magnetic sweeps as the magnetic sweeps interfere with the detector instruments. Harbor defense listening gear consists of sensitive elements mounted on the sea bottom and controlled from the shore. Indicator nets offer no definite obstacle, but give visual notice of the presence of submarines. Supersonic sets for the boom gate vessels are for the purpose of preventing an entry into a protected harbor when it is opened for the entry of friendly ships.[11]

Apart from normal harbour defences such as guns and searchlights, fixed anti-submarine defences included indicator loops which gave an indication that a vessel had passed over a predetermined line; harbour defence asdics which required skilled operation; controlled mines which were exploded by a shore operator as a submarine crossed the line; and anti-submarine booms. All these required large quantities of expensive material and, with the possible exception of the asdics, could be installed only from specially equipped vessels.[12]


[edit] Harbour Defence Asdics (HDAs)

The hydrophone, an underwater microphone, was used to listen for submarines; the German U-boat, UC-3, was sunk with the aid of hydrophones on April 23 1916, in company with the first depth charges.

Seaplanes and airships were also used to patrol for submarines, with Fregatten-Leutnant Dip. Ing. Walter Zelezny scoring the first submarine kill by aircraft (in L135, a type T1 Lohner flyingboat of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian naval air arm) on 15 September 1916 against the French submarine 'Foucault Q-70'commanded by captain LV Léon Henri Dévin.

While dipping hydrophones appeared before the end of WWI; the trials were abandoned.[13]





[edit] moewe otaki






[edit] Torpedo Bay


[edit] The Janie Seddon

Rusting hulk of the ship Janie Seddon The Janie Seddon was the first ship to fire shots in World War II for the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, was converted into a fishing vessel post-war, and after proving relatively unsuccessful in that role, it was grounded and left to rust and decay near the Port of Motueka in the Tasman Bay. When you are driving nearby, it certainly stands out!

The Janie Seddon was built in Paisley, Scotland in 1901 for the NZ Government to be used as a submarine mining vessel. She was commissioned as an examination vessel in Wellington Harbour in both World Wars. She fired the first shots of World War 11 for the NZ Division of the Royal Navy over the bow of a vessel entering the harbour. After the war she was adapted for trawl fishing in 1946 but proved to be uneconomical and was eventually broken up for scrap in 1955. Her remains now lie near the beach at Motueka in Tasman Bay, NZ

Built in 1901 by Fleming & Ferguson of Paisley, Scotland for the New Zealand Government. 126grt with a registered length of 90' 0" and a beam of 18' 0", this steam ship spent most of her career on Wellington Harbour. She is well remembered for her service as an Examination Vessel at Wellington during World War II. Sold in 1947 for use as a trawler, she was hulked on the beach at Motueka around 1955. These photos taken by Stephen Reed show the deterioration of her over the years. The first is in the 1960's, second in 1984 and the last in 2000.


[edit] Owen Stanley


1848 9-Dec HMS Rattlesnake, Capt Owen Stanley, RN, investigated conditions at the settlement of Port Essington, northern Australia. Capt Stanley commanded HMS Britomart at the establishment of the settlement in 1838.

1849


24-Jun HM ships Rattlesnake and Bramble, Capt Owen Stanley, RN, anchored in the Louisiades Peninsula while repairs were carried out on Bramble’s rudder. Capt Owen Stanley recorded in his journal: ‘The Hurdy Gurdy [mechanical organ] was then struck up which caused much amazement [among the natives] A looking glass in which most likely they saw their ugly faces for the first time caused at first much terror’.

1849


6-Jul Capt Owen Stanley, RN, HM ships Rattlesnake and Bramble, landed on Chaumont Island during the survey of the New Guinea coast from Cape Deliverance to the Louisiades Archipelago.

1849


5-Oct Capt Owen Stanley, RN, HM ships RattleSnake and Bramble, reported to Lord Stanley on his surveys of Rossel Island and the eastern end of the Louisiade Archipelago.

1849


3-Dec HM ships Rattlesnake and Bramble, Capt John Moresby, RN, completed a survey of the south-coast of New Guinea.


Owen Stanley

1811 - 1850

A man overboard (from the log of the "Britomart")

1840

watercolour

10.6 x 15.1

Royal Society of Tasmania Collection, 1965

Stanley was an avid sketcher who had a lifelong passion for the sea which was to see him travel the world by ship as a naval officer. Amongst the 154 pages of the album he made while captain of the Britomart (1837-1843) are comprehensive and personal observations of shipboard life, and depictions of the places to which he travelled. It is a ship's log in pictures and explanatory, informative text and shows Stanley's all-consuming interest in the sea, ships, voyages and sailors. The Royal Navy encouraged such embellishments to charts and ships' logs, with topographical accuracy and precise information being of the utmost importance. Although his sketching was considered by Stanley to be a hobby, he is recorded as having had lessons from the professional artist Conrad Martens in 1849. Unfortunately, they were not to be of much use to him; he died in Sydney aboard the Rattlesnake in early 1850.[14]



As captain of the HMS Rattlesnake, Owen Stanley was directed to survey parts of the Great Barrier Reef and chart the southern coast of New Guinea. This expedition offered protection and assistance to the Tam O'Shanter that carried Kennedy's ill-fated expedition to Rockingham Bay. Expedition naturalist John MacGillvray (in Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, London, 1852, p. 82), records the landing of Kennedy's party, "On May 23rd, a convenient spot for landing the overland expedition having been found on the shores of Rockingham Bay, we shifted our berth in the afternoon a few miles further to leeward... On the two following days everything belonging to Mr. Kennedy's party (with the exception of one horse drowned while swimming it ashore) was safely landed... The party, of thirteen men and twenty-eight horses (with carts, a flock of sheep for food, &c.), appeared to be furnished with every requisite for their intended journey, and the arrangements and appointments seemed to me to be perfect".[15]



Scientific Expeditions Evolutionary theory arose out of the great 19th century natural history expeditions. Here are some of the most important ones. The Rattlesnake expedition to Australasia

   Dates: 1 December 1846 - 23 October 1850
   Route: England - Cape of Good Hope - Mauritius - Tasmania/Australia/New Guinea - New Zealand - Cape Horn - England
   Commander: Captain Owen Stanley (1811-1850)
   Scientists: Thomas Huxley and John MacGillivray
   Significance: The voyage's main purpose was to map New Guinea and the coast of Australia; Huxley focused his studies on pelagic invertebrates, leading to his first major scientific discovery (that Cuvier's "Radiata" was an unnatural group)[16]





[edit] NZ wars




[edit] Links

  • Naval Auxiliary Patrol Service See page 210: "Authority for the formation of a Naval Auxiliary Patrol Service was given by War Cabinet on 6 December 1941. The objects of the service were to assist in the protection of harbours against enemy attack, particularly by small craft, the spotting of mines dropped by parachutes, and the saving of life. The NAPS was constituted under the Naval Defence Emergency Regulations 1941 and was deemed a part of the Royal New Zealand Navy."






8 Internet History Sourcebooks Project


[edit] NZ general history



[edit] NZ




Ships associated with New Zealand

HMS Encounter which was loaned to New Zealand until 1919 [20]


NZ Books


Minesweeping Books





Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships
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[edit] axis activity

Japanese submarine I-25


[edit] fortifications

Coastal Defences] maintained by Michael Biggs





[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zanzibar Courage
  2. ^ Kinahan, Jill (1992) By command of their Lordships Namibia Archaeological Trust Windhoek