TURAKINA SINKING

By Brendon Tarrant

On 20 August 1940 the New Zealand Shipping Company’s steamer the TURAKINA was sunk. Armed with a single 4.7-inch gun, the steamer was no match for the heavily armed German Commerce Raider ORION, under the command of Commander Kurt Weyher. The ORION armed with six 5.9-inch guns, one 3-inch gun, six light  anti-aircraft guns, and six torpedo tubes had been operating in New Zealand waters for sometime. She was already responsible for the sinking of one vessel, the 13,415 ton NIAGARA owned by the Canadian-Australasian Line. The ORION came across the TURAKINA, under the command of Captain J. B. Laird, in the Tasman Sea approximately 260 miles N. b. W. from Cape Egmont and 400 miles from Wellington. The TURAKINA ignored the raiders signal to stop and to refrain from using her radio, instead the steamer went full steam ahead and turned stern on to the ORION and radioed her position and advised that she was being shelled. The raider had unsuccessfully attempted to jam the TURAKINA's radio transmission.  The ORION opened fire on the TURAKINA and within 20 minutes half of the 56 crew were dead or injured and she was sinking by the stern. A second torpedo slammed into the ship, while the crew were abandoning her, causing more deaths and delivering the final blow to the steamer that sank less than two minutes later.

Captain Laird and 34 of his officers and men died in what has been termed a gallant effort in the fine tradition of the British Merchant Navy. During the fight the Turakina had kept the ORION at a distance with its single gun, and had made at least one successful hit on the raider. The ORION picked up 21 survivors; one severely injured sailor later died.

Assisted by a flying boat, the HMS ACHILLES went full speed to the location given by the TURAKINA, but search was unsuccessful. The TURAKINA had been  en-route from Sydney to Wellington to load frozen meat for England. The Orion continued to harass New Zealand shipping and was, in company of the raider KOMET, responsible for the loss of the HOLMWOOD and the RANGITANE.

TURAKINA

• Steel single screw steamer  No. 145,998
• 8,706 tons gross  5,429 tons net register
• Length 460.5 ft (140 metres) Beam 62.7 ft  Depth 35.2 ft.
• Engines: 1,194 hp
• Built at Glasgow in 1923 by W. Hamilton and Company.
• Owner: New Zealand Shipping Company Ltd

Sources

• New Zealand Shipwrecks, C.W.N Ingram, Sixth Edition. (Reed, Wellington, 1983)
• New Zealand Tragedies: Shipwrecks & Maritime Disasters, Gavin McLean. (Grantham House, New Zealand, 1990)