Old Weather Forum

Ken wrote:Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:09 am I want to test my idea of having a forum thread about the ship I am working on so that we can keep track of what is happening on the cruise and share any background information about the ship we learn.

For the current OldWeather cruise at 19%:
The HMS Wonganella spent Christmas 1916 in Malta and put to sea the following day.
Log:http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM%2053-68926/ADM%2053-68926-003_0.jpg

Some interesting background on the name from http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=109433:
WONGANELLA was a steel-hulled 3,998-ton steam cargo ship that measured: 360.0 x 48.5. Sir James Laing & Sons, Ltd., at Deptford shipyard, Sunderland built and completed her as Yard No.605 in October 1904; she was launched on 18 August 1904 as the WONGA FELL (Official No.120464) for Sir James Laing & Sons, Ltd., London and J. A. Seiler was the manager.
In 1906 the registered owner was W. S. Fell & Co., Ltd., Sydney.
In 1909, she was owned by W. Crosby & Co., Melbourne
In 1910 she was renamed WONGANELLA by the same owner.
In 1930 she was renamed MAGDA by new owner Afrikanska ?ngfartygs A/B), G?teborg and G. E. Sandstr?m was the manager; Official No.7747
She was wrecked on 31 March 1933 on the Stragglers, at the entrance to Smyth Channel, Magallanes, while voyaging from Callao & Valparaiso to Buenos Aires, with a general cargo & timber.

Ken wrote:Fri Nov 26, 2010 3:17 am Here is a crew list from 1909, which shows that there were 30 crewmen and what their stations were:
http://mariners.records.nsw.gov.au/1909/10/166won.htm
It is also interesting to see what a diverse background the crew had, from Auckland to Germany!

I'm sure the crew size was significantly larger when employed as a Q-boat.

Ken wrote:Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:34 pm The HMS Wonganella is currently OldWeather's only "submarine decoy" type ship, otherwise known as a "Q" boat. There is an interesting book online written in 1919 about this type of ship and it's unique mission of pretending to be a sinking merchantman when torpedoed and then opening fire on the submarine when it surfaced and approached! This type of tactic began in 1915, so I'd assume the Wonganella is pretty new to this game.

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b283111

The HMS Wonganella arrived in Toranto, Italy, on the 28th of December, 1916 after steaming 315 miles from Malta in just under two days. She remained in port until January 9th, 1917, when she departed for Brindisi, Italy.
Log:http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM%2053-68926/ADM%2053-68926-007_1.jpg

Ken wrote:Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:19 pm The Woganella remained in port at Brindisi until January 17th, 1917, when she departed to return to Malta.

While in Brindisi, the logs mention the following OW ships in port:
Light Crusier HMS Gloucester (http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf8 ... 4197017e9e)
Light Crusier HMS Bristol (http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf8 ... 41970083b3)

The log also recorded the following on January 12th:
"Captain discharged to hospital at Rome." I don't see any mention of his return before departing for Malta, but doubt they would leave without him.

Ken wrote:Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:00 pm Here is an interesting account of one of Wonganella's engagements from early in 1916 that illustrates the dangerous game the Q-ships were up to (from Q-Ships and their Story, pgs. 35-38):

Mention was made just now of the Werribee (alias
Wonganella, etc.). On February 3, 1916, this ship,
which had been fitted out at Gibraltar, under the
command of Lieut.-Commander B. J. D. Guy, R.N.,
left Port Said to cruise on the Malta to Egypt trade
route. She was a steamer of 3,848 tons, and had
taken in 2,600 tons of sand as ballast. About 9 o'clock
on the morning of February 9, Werribee was steaming
along when she picked up a signal on her wireless to
the effect that the S.S. Springwell, of 5,593 tons, was
torpedoed and sinking by the head. The vessel was
soon sighted, and the last boats could be seen already
leaving the ship, the position being about sixty miles
from Crete. The weather was perfect, with a flat,
calm sea and extreme visibility ? an ideal day, in fact,
for good gunnery.

But it was to be a most difficult experience, and
the incident well illustrates the problems which had
to be dealt with. About 10.15 a.m., as no submarine
could be seen, Werribee turned towards the four
boats already in the water, and hailed them for infor-
mation, then examined the condition of Springwell,
and presently turned again. All of a sudden, a great
submarine, painted like the Mediterranean pirate-ships
of ancient times, a brownish green, emerged from
the sea about 5,000 yards away on Werribee's star-
board bow, and came close up to Springwell, possibly
to prevent Werribee from salving her. Alarm stations
were sounded in the Q-ship, but the submarine's men
were already running to their two guns, and opened
fire. Werribee then decided to haul round and
pretend to run away. The third shot from the enemy
hit, and it was at first feared that the explosion had dis-
abled one gun's crew, but fortunately the hit was a
little further aft. It was immediately evident to
Werribee's captain that to-day the enemy was not
going to allow him to play the abandon-ship game,
but was intending to sink him straight away. The
submarine's accurate and rapid fire was clearly aimed
at Werribee's boats, and two of them were soon
riddled. It was for Lieut.-Commander Guy to make
up his mind quickly what tactics now to pursue, and
he decided to reveal the ship's true character and open
fire. This was done, and within ten seconds his 4-inch
quick-firer was in action, range 4,000 yards. After
six rounds from the Q-ship the enemy ceased firing,
and the eighth seemed to hit abaft the conning-tower.
Then she submerged in a cloud of smoke, about 11.10
a.m., this smoke screen being a favourite ruse for
escaping, and she was never seen again that day.
Werribee now turned her attention to the torpedoed
ship, but the latter was too far gone, and foundered
at 5.45 that afternoon. The men in Springwell's
boats were then picked up, and about 6 o'clock the
ship made for Malta. It was again sheer bad luck ; a
combination of difficult circumstances, and the tactics
of an astute German captain, had now prevented
success coming to the decoy. There was no question
about her disguise, and the captain of a merchantman
who witnessed the fight accurately spoke of Werribee
as ' an old tramp with a few patches of paint, firing
at the submarine.' Before the war we should have
thought no ship in His Majesty's Service could
possibly merit such a description as this, but strange
things were happening on the seas at this time, and
it was the highest compHment so to be described.

With the experience which had been gained from
all these engagements in various areas it was possible
to form some idea of the requisite standardized equip-
ment with which Q-ships should be supplied. First
of all, inasmuch as the enemy was being better armed,
at least one modern 4-inch gun was necessary, in
addition to any 12 -pounder. Long-range action,
especially in the Mediterranean, was probable at
times, for the enemy would not always consent to
engage close to. Secondly, it was highly important
that the ship should remain afloat, even though
seriously holed. It might happen ? and later on it
actually did occur ? that the enemy might suppose the
ship was just about to founder, thus making it quite
safe to close her in order to read her name. Then
would come the one great chance for the Q-ship to
destroy the enemy. Therefore, to this end, it became
certain that these ships should be given cargoes of
barrels, or timber, carefully stowed, so that it would
be no easy task to sink her, and she might perhaps
even be salved.

http://www.archive.org/stream/qshipstheirstory00chatuoft#page/34/mode/2up

Ken wrote:Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:53 am A ship of many names! In addition to the civilian names already indicated ("Wonga Fell", "Wonganella", and "Magda"), the ship also used a number of alias during its war service, presumably to hide it true mission. In addition to H.M.S. "Wonganella", which is used in the logs, she was also referenced to as Thornhill, Werribee, and Wellholme (Q-Ships and Their Stories, E. Keble Chatterton)

farrelly wrote:Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:04 am Wonganella's logs are -- what's the word? -- sparer? than any I've seen. Nevertheless, the instructions to the logkeeper seem pretty standard:

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -002_0.jpg

That was the first page of a new log volume. And the first page entered? Here it is, in all its detail:

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -002_1.jpg

This half page covers six days, and has exactly two standard weather entries (wind direction -"Westly".)

Q-ships must have been under some orders that relieved them of the mundane weather keeping done by other ships.

Not complaining - I started following this ship because it seemed to be an orphan, and the science guys said they could use the data, nonstandard (!!) though it is.

I'm just amazed. ::)

Added note: This log book uses yet another nonstandard format, and the logkeeper picks up at 1 pm of the same day as the last entry on the previous page (August 26, 1916.) Where the noon entry should be, halfway down, a note shows he's starting at midnight, August 27.

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -003_0.jpg


Any advice on how to capture this? (It looks like they are going to persist with this method:)

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -003_1.jpg

Janet Jaguar wrote:Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:55 am Philip has been told to look for problems from this ship, and said you were doing fine. I'll add this on so his team knows of all the problems.

Apparently the climatologists who set this up honestly believed the Royal Navy ran all its ships to the same standard, and underestimated the degree of total involvement from civilian crew of private vessels leased to the RN. It is certainly what I had expected going in to the project. Call it a learning experience.

philip.brohan wrote:Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:16 pm We'll have to have a competition for 'most complicated misuse of the logbook format' - it's amazing what the log-keepers would do to save a bit of paper.

There is, at the moment, only one thing we can do in such complicated cases - please put in the first date and all the weather obs as normal, and we'll sort it out later (we'll see the oddity because there will be four missing days in the sequence of log pages).

Philip

farrelly wrote:Thu Mar 24, 2011 4:48 pm Wonganella log update: Starting October 19, 1916 the timing of the log entries matches the page format (though a nonstandard format.) That is, the first entry is 1 am on the date at the top of the page. there are still no temperatures, and no standard weather entries while in port, but there are now 6 barometric readings a day (except while in port.)

farrelly wrote:Fri Mar 25, 2011 10:50 pm Finally, Wonganella offers up a tidbit for the historians: the sinking of the Statesman, though it didn't sink right away. I guess the fact that it was sinking may explain why towing Statesman was so difficult, though I'm not sure why Wonganella ended up needing a tow herself:

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -009_0.jpg


http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -009_1.jpg


From the Wikipedia entry for the submarine UB - 43:

In the meantime, UB-43 had continued sinking British ships, sending down five in a nine-day span in early November.[17] Statesman, a 6,153-ton steamer carrying a general cargo, was first on 3 November; six crewmen were killed when the ship went down 200 nautical miles (370 km) east of Malta.[21]

farrelly wrote:Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:04 pm This is quite the handwriting! Too bad there's no wind direction, Beaufort code, barometer or temperature reading over these 5 days:

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -002_1.jpg

oh, well - you can't have everything . . . 8)

farrelly wrote:Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:04 am Wonganella -

And now, the moment we always wait for -action! Encounter with a submarine in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, many men seriously wounded, and damage to the ship as well.

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -015_1.jpg

farrelly wrote:Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:14 pm and that's all - I've been sent packing from Wonganella.

Thursday Next wrote: And on the Wonganella's final voyage as a Q-ship, two more U-boat encounters:

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -043_1.jpg

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -044_0.jpg

The logs don't mention the Wonganella returning fire on the submarine - I wonder if the Germans had got wise to the Q-ships and the U-boat was staying out of their range (though just within the U-boat's range, even though they failed to score a single hit)?

Janet Jaguar wrote:Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 am I found this about the first event.
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http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM% ... -043_1.jpg
HMS Wonganella 18-June-1917 log
"5.20PM Submarine sighted on the horizon. Steering to NW.
"5.50PM Submarine disappeared from view.
"6.30PM a/c ESE.
"8.15PM a/c SSW. 8.58PM a/c Wh~~. 9.15PM Stopped.
"9.30PM Sighted boats.
"10.15PM Stopped picked up 30 survivors from S/S Elele.
"11.0PM Proceeded ESE."
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http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?13572
SS Elele, built by Irvine's SB. & DD. Co., Ltd., West Hartlepool in 1913 and owned at the time of her loss by British & African Steam Nav. Co., Ltd. (Elder, Dempster & Co., Ltd.), Liverpool, was a British steamer of 6557 tons.

On June 18th, 1917, Elele, on a voyage from Boston to Liverpool with a cargo of wheat and ammunition, was sunk by the German submarine U-24 (Walter Remy), 300 miles NW3/4W of Fastnet. There were no casualties.
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