Rangantine~ 27 November 1940

Liner sunk by German raiders off East Cape

Found at www.nzhistory.net

Survivors of the Rangitane

The 16,712-ton New Zealand Shipping Company liner MV Rangitane was sunk by two German auxiliary cruisers (armed merchant raiders), Orion and Komet, 550 km off East Cape.

The British-owned vessel was the largest Allied merchant ship to be sunk by a German surface vessel during the Second World War (German submarines and aircraft sank many larger ships).

On 25 November the Orion and Komet (cruising with an unarmed supply ship, the Kulmerland) had sunk the little steamer Holmwood off the Chatham Islands, taking its 17 crew and 12 passengers prisoner. At 3:40 a.m. on the 27th the German flotilla intercepted a far bigger prize, the Rangitane, three days out of Auckland bound for the United Kingdom via Panama. The liner had a crew of 201 and was carrying 111 passengers, including Fleet Air Arm recruits and radar specialists on their way to Britain, and a group of British women who had escorted 477 child evacuees to New Zealand aboard SS Batory. A trainee airman, Alan Jones, recalled the attack:

"Half past three in the morning, the clanging of sirens was going, and there were big crashes…. I went up on deck, and there was one of the raiders on each side of us, and the supply ship in front. You could see some of the shells ricocheting off. To hell with that, so we went down below again. I was a bit scared, a bit bewildered. Then there was another salvo and one of the saloons was on fire…. There was the smell of cordite, and the ship would shudder every so often when it was hit."

Seven passengers were killed or mortally wounded, including four of the female child escorts. Eight crew members also lost their lives, including two stewardesses and two brothers who were both engine-room hands. (Many sources erroneously claim there were only 11 deaths, but it was closer to 17) The other 297 passengers and crew were taken aboard the German ships before the Rangitane was sunk.

Most of the captives were later landed on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago (near Papua New Guinea), from where they were repatriated to Australia in January 1941. A number of merchant seamen and servicemen, including Alan Jones, were taken to Germany and interned.

The Rangitane Riddle, A new book by Trevor Bell

“A rip-roaring yarn, all the better for being true”

The Rangitane was a large, fast, majestic, two-funnelled ocean liner; an icon of the golden age of sea travel. Early in the Second World War she was intercepted at night and sunk by two small, slow, scruffy German raiders disguised as Japanese merchant traders, far from the main theater of war. Why and how did this happen? Was it true that they knew the wherabouts of Rangitane? Were there really secret agents feeding the Germans with information? Had British secret codes been compromised? Why did the raiders sail over a thousand miles out of their way to release the majority of the survivors on a remote British island while others were shipped back to POW camps in Germany? 

This is the riddle of the Rangitane.

The Rangitane Riddle is the true story of the intrigue surrounding the capture and sinking of RMS Rangitane, based on the personal accounts of those involved. It follows the drama of the conflict and the subsequent amazing acts of humanity to the survivors. Described at the time as a ‘rip-roaring yarn‘, it proves that adversity can bring out the best in most people. Or can it? Read how two survivors made enemies of everybody.

Britannia ~ 25 March 1941

The Britannia was built in Glasgow by Alexander
Stephen & Sons. She entered service in 1926.
Found at www.ssbritannia.org.

The SS Britannia was built in Glasgow by Alexander Stephen and Sons. She entered service in 1926. On the 11th March 1941 SS Britannia set out from Liverpool to Freetown, Durban and Bombay. She was originally a passenger ship of the Anchor Line and was operating as a troop ship under the command of Captain A Collie.

The voyage began with the Britannia as a member of a convoy with an anti-submarine escort. By the 25th of March the rest of the convoy had disappeared and the Britannia was on her own. Early that same morning she was attacked by the German Hilfskreuzer (auxiliary cruiser) Thor, a converted merchant ship, under the command of Kapitän Otto Kähler.

The Thor was armed with six 5.9 inch guns and easily overpowered the Britannia. When her single rear 4 inch gun was destroyed Captain Collie gave the order to abandon ship.

Britannia's radio operator had managed to get off an RRR (Raider, Raider, Raider) signal with her location, which was acknowledged by Sierra Leone radio. The Thor picked up radio traffic which indicated that a Royal Navy warship was on its way at speed. In the light of this information, Kapitän Kähler did not stay to pick up survivors.

After giving warning and allowing time to abandon ship, he shelled the Britannia on her waterline and she sank quickly. He heard later that no warship had arrived and that some of the survivors had spent many days on rafts and in lifeboats before being picked up by other ships that happened to be in the area. 

The SS Britannia was carrying service personnel, passengers and crew when she was attacked and sunk. There were 492 people on board, 243 of them survived. The survivors took to the ship's lifeboats and some threw baulks of timber overboard and used them as makeshift rafts. Many died at sea as they waited to be rescued. Lifeboat #5 carried about 50 survivors who were picked up by the Spanish ship Bachi.

The Spanish ship Cabo de Hornos was in the area five days after the sinking and picked up 2nd Lt. Cox, Sub Lt. Davidson and Lt. Rowlandson from the 1st Raft. On board the Cabowas a French Baroness who, with Lt. Rowlandson, persuaded the captain to keep searching. They later picked up Spencer Mynott and Alfred Warren from the 2nd Raft, and survivors from another raft and two lifeboats, a total of 77, who were taken to the island of Tenerife.

67 were rescued by the MV Raranga and taken to Montevideo. Four more survivors on another raft were picked up by another Spanish ship. After 23 days at sea, 38 survivors reached the coast of Brazil on Britannia's Lifeboat Number Seven, having navigated across most of the Atlantic.

Sources differ considerably between the numbers of passengers, crew and survivors. Official sources record 243 survivors out of a total of 492 who set out.

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