The Komet Enters the Pacific

THE Komet, which had arrived in the Pacific after an extraordinary passage across the Arctic Ocean and the Behring Sea, was commanded by Captain Robert Eyssen. She was a relatively small ship of 3287 tons gross register, built in 1937 as the Ems for the Norddeutscher-Lloyd. Propelled by two sets of oil engines geared to a single shaft, the ship had a speed of 15 knots or better. She was armed with six 5.9-inch guns, nine anti-aircraft guns, six deck and four underwater torpedo tubes. She carried one Arado seaplane and a high-speed motor-launch. Her complement was 270 officers and men.

The Komet had sailed from Gdynia on 3 July 1940, passed close inshore round the heel of Norway, and then made a wide sweep clear of the coast until she reached the North Cape. She then headed eastward across the Barents Sea to the south end of Novaya Zemlya, where she arrived on 15 July.

The Russian ice-breaker, which was to have met her, failed to appear, and the Komet spent the next four weeks cruising and waiting. Captain Eyssen had good reason to believe that the Russians were ‘carrying on a skilful delaying policy’. On 13 August he received orders to proceed to Matochkin Strait, the narrow channel which bisects Novaya Zemlya, but when the Komet arrived there she found no sign of the promised ice-breaker, the Lenin, which had gone on with a convoy a week before. Captain Eyssen pushed on into the strait, where he picked up two Russian ice-pilots. The Komet finally passed through the strait on 19 August, and, following close behind the ice-breaker Stalin, she safely cleared Cape Chelyuskin, the most northerly point of Siberia, 720 miles from the North Pole. Escorted by the ice-breaker Lazar Kaganovich, the raider had a stormy passage across the East Siberian Sea. On 1 September, when there were still 600 miles to go to Behring Strait, the ice-breaker suddenly stopped and reported that ‘orders had come from Moscow’ not to accompany the Komet any farther eastward but to bring her back.

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Captain Eyssen, ignoring the Russian protests, went on alone; after passing Wrangel Island, the Komet experienced fine, clear weather, and the sea was free of ice. During the night of 4–5 September she entered the Behring Sea. ‘From receipt of orders in the Barents Sea we had taken twenty-three days for nine of which we were stopped or at anchor; that is to say, we took only fourteen days on passage to cover a distance of 3,300 sea miles, of which 720 were through ice.’ On the passage southward from the Behring Sea the Komet was joined by the Kulmerland from Kobe.

On 20 October the Regensburg sailed for Yokohama, and the two raiders, with the Kulmerland in company, left Lamotrek to operate in the area east of New Zealand, raiding shipping on the Panama route. The Komet and the Kulmerland were camouflaged as Japanese ships, the former bearing the name Manyo Maru and the latter Tokyo Maru. They had these names and the Japanese mercantile flag painted on their hulls. During daylight hours the three ships steamed in line abreast at masthead visibility distance apart, this giving them a range of observation in clear weather of from 90 to 100 miles. At night the raiders closed to within visibility distance of the Kulmerland.

The ships passed south between Nauru and Ocean Islands ‘in the rather vain hope of coming upon steamers carrying cargoes from there to Australia.’ From 29 to 31 October the raiders were steaming through the area between the New Hebrides and Fiji. In the evening of 3 November the lights of a ship were sighted in a position about 250 miles north-west of the Kermadec Islands. She stopped when warning shots were fired ahead of her and proved to be the American motor-vessel City of Elwood, 6197 tons. Her name and United States markings were seen when searchlights were turned on her and ‘without further questioning she was released.’

On 7 November 1940 the raiders arrived in an area some 400 miles east by north of East Cape, New Zealand, on the lookout for ships on the Auckland-Panama route. ‘After four days of unsuccessful patrolling in conditions of poor visibility, operations were transferred 300 nautical miles further south, so as to concentrate activity on the Wellington route’, 500-odd miles due east of Cape Palliser. This area was combed for ten days without success, so, assuming that shipping was being routed south of the Chatham Islands, the Germans left on 20 November for a position about 100 miles south-east of that group. Four days of cruising in that area failed to locate any shipping, and on 24 November the raiders headed northward intending to proceed direct to Nauru Island, which was to be attacked on 8 December.

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MINES & MINESWEEPING

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SURVIVORS