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John

HMS Puriri (T02) was a coastal cargo boat which was requisitioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and converted into a minesweeper. She was sunk by a German mine 25 days after she was commissioned.

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HMS Puriri Memorial Ocean Beach, Whangarei Heads, New Zealand
https://ianskipworth.com/photo/d7002011/Puriri_memorial/DSC_1102.jpg
Survivors of Puriri.
The Gale which was a mile and a half or more ahead of us came back and lowered a boat and picked us up. One of the Cruisers (Achilles)was returning to base and she sent over a boat. They transferred most of our people onto her.
Puriri was sunk just before the creation of the RNZN
Crew members of Puriri
Puriri was sunk just before the creation of the RNZN
On 14 May 1941, the HMS Puriri – a minesweeper working along the coast of New Zealand – struck a mine off Bream Head in the northern approaches to the Hauraki Gulf. As nzhistory.net.nz notes, Puriri was rocked by a violent explosion, and sank so quickly that no lifeboats could be launched. The ship’s commanding officer, two stewards, a stoker and an able seaman – all of them former merchant seamen serving as naval reservists or under temporary (T 124) naval articles – were drowned, and five others were injured. The 26 survivors were rescued from the water by the Gale, another minesweeper. The mine it struck was a German contact mine, part of a 228-mine barrage laid on 13–14 June 1940 by the raider Orion. These mines had claimed their first victim, the trans-Pacific liner Niagara, on 19 June that year, fortunately without loss of life. This newspaper clipping of Puriri comes from a Navy Department file on the sinking, and includes telegrams to the families of those killed. Archives Reference: N1 Box 143/ 6/26/1 archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=21464349 For updates on our On This Day series and news from Archives New Zealand, follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ArchivesNZ Material from Archives New Zealand Caption information from www.nzhistory.net.nz/page/nz-minesweeper-sunk-hauraki-gulf


Puriri was owned by the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company. She was one of four ships requisitioned as a consequence of the German auxiliary cruiser Orion’s minefield and the loss of the liner Niagara, the others being Matai, Gale and Rata. Puriri was taken over on 20 November 1940 and handed to the dockyard for conversion.

On 27 November 1940, Puriri put to sea urgently to assist the cruiser HMNZS Achilles in the search for the raiders Orion and Komet, which had sunk the liner Rangitane. She returned to port three days later and resumed conversion.

She was commissioned on 19 April 1941, and assigned to the 25th Minesweeping Flotilla, which was assigned to sweep German mines in the Hauraki Gulf.
Fate
On 13 May 1941, the launch Rawea attached a buoy to a German mine that had been caught in a fishing net eight miles north-east of Bream Head.[2] Puriri and HMNZS Gale were sent to deactivate it, and arrived in the area the next day. Gale sailed past the mine without seeing it, but Puriri, also not seeing the mine, struck it at 11 am. The explosion caused the ship to immediately sink at 35°46′15″S 174°43′00″ECoordinates: 35°46′15″S 174°43′00″E and now lies at a depth of 98m.[3]

Of the 31 aboard, five (including the commanding officer Lt D. W. Blacklaws) were killed or drowned, and three seamen were injured, one seriously. Gale rescued the 26 survivors, 5 officers and 19 ratings.[4]

The cargo boat Breeze was requisitioned as a replacement for Puriri.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNZS_Puriri_(T02)

HMNZS Muritai (T05)

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HMNZS Muritai
HMNZS Muritai (T05) and HMNZS Aroha (T24)

HMNZS Muritai Minesweeper Converted merchant boat 1940-1946 Training and cable-lifting ship
HMNZS Muritai, auxiliary minesweeper and anti-submarine patrol vessel, is the RNZN Ship Of The Week.
The 462 ton Muritai was a Wellington harbour ferry built for Eastbourne Borough Council in 1922-23, and from a brief scan of some manuscript items in the Borough archives I gather people had warm summer excursions memories of her, in that way people tend to feel about tugboats and ferries,

Muritai was commissioned as a minesweeper in 1940, operating out of Wellington, and was involved in a number of successful minesweeping operations with the local MS flotilla. There was an interruption in her war service in 1943 when she got entangled in the NZ Naval Board’s long search for a minelaying vessel, recounted in S.D. Waters’s New Zealand navy history.

In 1939, the NZ naval authorities had drawn up ambitious plans for extensive anti-invasion minefields to be laid around all its main ports and in some cases within harbours close to important military installations. Most crucial was Auckland for which 422 mines were ordered from Australia, with an agreement that the RAN would send HMAS Bungaree to lay them.

Demands for the services of the RAN’s sole minelayer extended however from the Dutch East Indies to New Caledonia and Noumea, and while the defensive fields into Auckland were finally laid, the experience convinced the RNZN that it needed its own vessel, both for minelaying and maintaining the fields.

A long and fruitless search for a suitable vessel, both within New Zealand and the United States followed, and in the end, with some misgivings, it was decided that the little former ferry HMNZS Muritai would have to be it.

In 1943 she was sent into the Devonport dockyard for the necessary work, but lay there for months with nothing done. The yard was at full stretch repairing US ships coming from the Pacific. In the end, Muritai was simply taken back and resumed duties as a port minesweeping and anti-submarine patrol vessel.
At the beginning of June 1944 HMNZS Muritai was assigned to Tamaki as a seagoing training ship.
She was released from service in 1946, and I’m afraid I can’t readily find trace of what happened to her since.

Again, I’m always impressed by the way the RNZN turns its ships out, and with fewer hulls in the water, how much they pack onto them. HMNZS Muritai here is a good case on both points. I don’t have a reference for her armament fit, but that looks like a TWIN gun installation on the bandstand up front, which would be very unusual for a ship of this size and type.

And finally, of course, she looks just a treat. HMNZS Muritai is the RNZN Ship Of The Week.

And below Muritai in another life

HMNZS Matai (T01/T372) was a Marine Department lighthouse tender which was requisitioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and converted into a minesweeper.

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HMNZS Matai – Mine sweeper – later functioned as transport ship 1945–1946

Operational history[edit]

Matai was the government’s lighthouse tender servicing the marine lights around New Zealand and offshore islands, and had been used for cable laying in the 1930s. She was named after the native mataī tree.

MATAI pre WWII

She was requisitioned on 3 March 1941 and handed over to a dockyard for conversion.

After commissioning on 1 April 1941, Matai took over as the flotilla leader of the 25th Minesweeping Flotilla from Muritai and the flotilla began clearing a German minefield in the Hauraki Gulf.

HMFS Viti (T373) 1941 December 16 Came under the control of the Royal New Zealand Navy

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The story of HMFS Viti
Ship Details:
Type: Minesweeper, patrol, anti-submarine vessel
Pennant No.: T373 (from 16/12/1941)
Commissioned: 17 April 1941 ad HMFS Viti– NZNB control from 16 December 1941
End of Service: As minesweeper ended service June 1944
As supply ship decommissioned 7 November 1945
Displacement: 676 tons (687 tonnes)
Dimensions: 48.5 x 9.6m
Owner: Fiji Government
Based: Suva
Built: Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering, Hong Kong
Machinery: two diesel engines 1100bhp = 12 knots
Pre-war use: passenger/cargo and supply ship
Complement: 56 officers and ratings
Armament: 1 x 4-inch (102mm) gun, 2 x 3-pdr guns, 2 x light machineguns, 4 x depth charges, ASDIC, 1 x 20mm Oerlikon fitted in 1943 – unofficial
Ship’s History
RCS (Royal Colonial Ship) Viti was built and launched at Hong Kong in late 1939 and was fitted out as a ‘minor combatant ship. However she was not fitted with any weapons and was used for administrative duties in the Western Pacific including Fiji. Viti first arrived in Auckland in January 1941. She was to be equipped to train Fiji’s volunteer naval forces in minesweeping. This was a common practice during the war. Most Volunteer Reserve personnel were given training in minesweeping and posted to minesweepers or other small vessels rather than major warships.
To formalise the command structure, Viti was commissioned on 17 April 1941 as His Majesty’s Fijian Ship (HMFS) Viti under Fijian control. In November 1941 the New Zealand Government advised the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs that New Zealand could not be responsible for the defence of Fiji unless the Viti was placed under the control of the New Zealand Naval Board for ‘uninterrupted employment in Fijian waters.’ In December 1941 she was placed under Admiralty control and it appears at this time she changed her prefix to HMS. From 16 December the New Zealand Naval Board was given operational control of the vessel. HMFS/HMS Viti spent her war service in Fijian waters and would return annually to New Zealand for refitting. On her first refit visit in December 1941, she was equipped with ASDIC. All refits were undertaken during the New Zealand winter at Lyttleton between 1943 and 1945.
She was tasked with carrying out patrol, escort and minesweeping work. With the American entry into the Second World War there were changes to the defence responsibilities in the Pacific. From late 1942, the American Navy took over the defence of Fiji. Fiji was a target of the Japanese forces in early 1942 until the tactical draw at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 followed by the decisive American victory at Midway in June 1942. Operation control of Viti was passed to COMSOPAC. For five months in 1942 she was in constant operation with aircraft of the RNZAF maintaining anti-submarine patrols and ‘close anti-submarine escort for the increasing number of troop transports and supply ships arriving and sailing from Suva. This monotonous round of duty was scarcely relieved by infrequent and unverified reports of submarines.’ In late 1943 she was escorting vessels to the Solomons and Tarawa Atoll where she lost her ASDIC dome in early 1944.
In the 1944 refit she was partly disarmed, had the minesweeping gear removed and converted back to a supply vessel for the Western Pacific under the control of the High Commissioner Western Pacific (HCWP) based at Suva. She served with the Hawera, Kapuni and the ex-USN Awahou which had been approved for service with the HCWP by the War Cabinet of the New Zealand Government. Until her decommissioning in November 1945, she carried supplies around the Western Pacific for the HCWP and well as passengers and troops. In September 1945 she towed the broken down Hawera from Espiritu Santo to Suva for repairs which was a trip of 700 miles (1127km). She also escorted the RNZN HDML 1184 from Auckland to Suva in November 1944 and after the decommissioning ceremony on 7 November 1945, her last official duty was to escort the HDML 1348 from Suva to Auckland arriving on 18 November 1945. At this time she ended her naval service and returned to the ownership of the Fiji government. She undertook several passenger and cargo voyages between Auckland and the Pacific Islands but put up for sale in late 1946. In 1948 she was sold to the Tasman Steam Ship Co. in Auckland and was to be used for the coastal and trans-Tasman trade. She was laid up in 1961 and then sold again.
In 1955 one of the RNZN’s SDMLs P3555 (HMNZS Tamure) was made available to the Fiji Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (FRNVR) and was renamed HMFS Viti until 1959 when the Reserve went into recess. During her passage to and from Fiji she was accompanied by one of the Loch-class frigates.
HMFS Viti
HMFS VITI which in 1941 took men and equipment to coastwatching posts in the Pacific
HMFS Viti
Viti

HMFS Viti
1941 December 16 Came under the control of the Royal New Zealand Navy
http://www.nzmaritime.co.nz/viti.htm