Warbird Information Exchange

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 77,00.html

German sunk a US ship only 14km off Australia's south coast in Nov 1940... so where was the RAAF and RAN???

Scary for such a early date in war to have Germans on Australia door step and controlling the south of Australia waters..

Wonder where esle the Germans got to?

How come no martime flights by Anson or Hudson would of found these german ships

I think you will find that there's rather a lot of water around Australia! Now tell me, how many Ansons and Hudsons were available on that date?
How many crews were there?

My wife's father was flying Hudson's with 13Sq out of Darwin in 1940/41 and looking at his log books it's surprising the amount of flying they did along Australia's vast coastline looking for enemy subs and ships...

Many Allied ships were sunk along the East Coast off NSW and Queensland also and while he was flying Beauforts he also did many patrols....not many sightings though.

Keep in mind that many ships were sunk within sight of the lights of New York along the US east coast and even in the Gulf and Caribbean at this time...

A gentleman I knew (since deceased) flew Ansons on coastal antisubmarine patrol from Camden (IIRC) in the early stages of the war. He said that finding anything was like trying to find a small pebble on a beach.

We can see today how difficult it is to patrol Australia's coastline, so it wouldn't take much to realise that it would be impossible to discover all enemy naval activity.

Look how many vessels were attacked in close proximity to the UK. When one realises the smaller coastline and bigger air force, it shouldn't be a surprise that a German raider could have success of the Australian coast.

The City of Rayville was sunk not far from Cape Otway. I visited the Cape Otway Lighthouse on my honeymoon a month ago, and there is a fascinating display about the local shipwrecks, incuding the abovementioned vessel. Looking out to sea gives scope to the great scale of the place.

Cheers,
Matt

By November 1940 the RAAF had received about 100 of the future 1000 EATS Avro Ansons, in addition to the 48 pre-war Ansons already on strength, and about 100 of the eventual 240 Lockheed Hudsons, but had a coast line of 20,000 km or 12000 miles to patrol.

The 700 DAP Beauforts would not commence rolling off the production lines until late 1941, and the first of the RAAF Catalina's would not arrive until February of 1941.

In reality its operational strength was even poorer than those numbers represent, given the numbers of those aircraft required to form training and operational conversion units rather than maritime patrol, without taking into account available aircrews to provide 24/7 patrols.

The RAAF had been allowed to become very poorly equipped over the 1930's depression due to over reliance on the Imperial defence strategy of the Singapore Garrison and Royal Navy Battlecruiser fleet.

Other than 1930's purchases of Hawker Demons, Supermarine Seagulls and Avro Ansons the RAAF aircraft were largely obsolete and the official fighter of the RAAF at the beginning of WW2 were 2 survivors of 8 Bristol Bulldogs, and while 40 Wirraways had been delivered these were an advanced trainer and certainly not a combat fighter in modern terms.

The RAAF was so poorly equipped that between Sept 1939 and Feb 1940 it had to lease 4 DC-3's from the ANA airline to patrol the entire Australian coastline.

The link below identifies a RAAF operational strength at the beginning of WW2 in September 1939 of 164 aircraft with 50% committed to maritime patrols.

http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/~thesis/adt-ADFA/uploads/approved/adt-ADFA20031029.102545/public/04chapter3.pdf

At the beginning of WW2 the RAAF still only had 4 permanent bases in the form of Pearce in WA, Laverton and Point Cook in Victoria and Richmond in NSW, with a 5th permanent base being constructed at Amberley in Qld.

While other new bases were soon to be established, the majority of those were training bases located inland for the support of the European war via the EATS training program and were not intended to play a role in the local defence of Australia or its coastal patrols.

Despite the lack of actual aircraft to undertake patrols, and bases from which to patrol from, U-Boats were also a difficult weapon to counteract until the introduction of ASV radar much later in the war, and in 1940 success was largely reliant on observers in the aircraft spotting a snorkel or periscope in the water or the great luck of capturing a submarine on the surface, this was true off the coast of Australia and also in war torn Europe.

Even then the bomb load of an Anson was such that two passes had exhausted the offensive capability of the aircraft, and little more could be done to damage the U-Boat.

Much later when ASV radar was fitted to patrolling Ansons the bomb load reduced even further, increasing the ability to detect and locate U-Boats, but severely limiting the ability to inflict any meaningful damage.

In relation to the RAN, its Cruisers etc were already in action in the Mediteranean Sea against the Italian Navy, and other than one ship left on the home station had little ability in overall coastal defence in that time other than convoy and sea lane patrols etc, such as that the HMAS Sydney was engaged in.

U Boat Captains were opportunistic hunters of freighters and transport ships along the Australian coast, and unlikely to wish to engage a Naval ship of any capability, and tried to avoid detection and engagement.

It could be expected that RAN ship movements would be monitored by German agents and relayed to support ships and U Boat crews.

The early WW2 story of Australian defence forces reflect the outlook of Australia as a British colony and its focus on defence of the mother country rather than its own defence as an independant Nation. WW2, and in particular the entry of Japan into the Pacific War forever changed Australia's reliance on the UK or priority of the UK's interests over that of Australia's own interests.


regards

Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
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