On July 25th 1918 Wimmera left Auckland at 10:00 am bound for Sydney with 76 passengers and 75 crew on board. Her route was to take her north towards the Three Kings Islands where she would turn West and South towards Sydney. At 8:00pm the following day, after a period of rumour filled silence, her owners received information that Wimmera "had been lost off the north coast of New Zealand by external explosion". At 5.15am on Wednesday June 26th 1918, 18 miles North of Cape Maria Van Dieman, Wimmera struck a mine placed by the German raider Wolf. The explosion shattered the stern of the ship and she quickly settled but remained on an even keel. All lighting went out within two minutes of the explosion making the evacuation of passengers all the more difficult. Thirty minutes after the explosion Wimmera's bow shot 50 feet up into the air and she plunged stern first to the bottom sending up a huge 100 foot high geyser of steaming water. Describing her final moments Mr F. W. Mole, a passenger on that fateful trip, said; "The scene as the vessel sank was as impressive as I desire ever to see". In those feverish and terrifying last minutes the crew and passengers remained remarkably calm and stoic. In the dark, many dressed only in the flimsiest of garments having minutes before been snug in bed, the passengers clambered their way up unseen stairways and along unfamiliar corridors to the open deck. Douglas Bradney, a Union Steam Ship Company officer travelling to Australia made the observation that in "passing along the alley-way to the saloon companionway, where he met several of the ladies coming out in perfect calmness. They were "bricks" he said..." The Wimmera's Captain, Herbert Kells, remained at his post until the last along with the Chief Officer Mr A J Nicol and the Chief Steward Mr H Verge. These and 23 others lost their lives on the ship. The lifeboats were launched but one was swamped and a second stove in leaving the remainder to rescue the surviving 125 passengers and crew. Once launched and at the mercy of wind and current the lifeboats drifted far and wide. Four boats containing eighty four survivors landed at Tom Bowline Bay near the very tip of the North Island in the evening of July 27th. On the afternoon of this day a fifth boat came ashore at Taemaro, four miles east of Mangonui while another boat was blown clear of North Cape and drifted down the coast to a landing at Kaiamou Beach http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourstuff/Wimmera.htm 26 people lost their lives with the collision of the - SS Wimmera - and a German mine - Wednesday 26 June 1918 - North of Cape Maria van Dieman Northland North Island http://www.grahambould.net/casualty.htm
A picture of SS Wimmera and also one of the German commerce raider Wolf the ship responsible for laying the mine that sank her...
