False Flags tells the epic story of German raider voyages to the South Seas during the early years of World War II.
In 1940 the raiders Orion, Komet, Pinguin and Kormoran left Germany and waged a ‘pirate war’ in the South Seas — part of Germany’s strategy to attack the British Empire’s maritime trade on a global scale. Their extraordinary voyages spanned the globe and are maritime sagas in the finest tradition of seafaring.
The four raiders voyaged across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Arctic and Antarctic. They sank or captured 62 ships in a forgotten naval war that is told here in its entirety. The Orion and Komet terrorised the South Pacific and New Zealand waters before Pearl Harbor when the war was supposed to be far away. The Pinguin sank numerous Allied merchant ships in the Indian Ocean before mining the approaches to Australian ports and capturing the Norwegian whaling fleet in Antarctica. The Kormoran raided the Atlantic but will always be remembered for sinking the Australian cruiser Sydney off Western Australia, killing all 645 sailors on board in tragic circumstances.
False Flags is also the story of the Allied sailors who encountered these raiders and fought suicidal battles against a superior foe as well as the men, women and children who endured captivity on board the raiders as prisoners of the Third Reich.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1 The raiders prepare
2 The Orion’s Atlantic war
3 The Hauraki Gulf
operation
4 The Pinguin’s first victories
5 The Northeast Passage
6 The Tasman Raider
7 The Far East Squadron
8 The Australian
minefields
9 The Indian Ocean pursuit
10 Nauru and the phosphate
ships
11 Hilfskreuzer Kormoran
12 The castaways of Emirau
Island
13 Von Luckner, spies and
the fifth column
14 Return to Nauru and
intrigue in Japan
15 The raider war in
Antarctica
16 The Kormoran in the Atlantic
17 Remote encounters and the
islands of despair
18 Tanker hunt in the
Arabian Sea
19 A new operational area
20 The voyage of the Adjutant
21 Destination Bordeaux
22 The Galapagos Islands
raider
23 Encounter off Shark Bay
24 The Kormoran–Sydney battle
25 The fleet of lifeboats
Epilogue
Appendixes: the raiders
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Stephen Robinson has a First Class degree in Asian history and politics and has graduated from Australian Command and Staff College. He has worked at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, as a policy officer in the Department of Defence, and has now written three books about the art of war.
Review :
"This is a fascinating book. The story is well supported by historic photographs, maps and the use of eyewitness reports.”
Few writers have attempted to present a balanced, strategic overview of (the German raider) operations, but in False Flags, Stephen Robinson has written a thoroughly researched account of the auxiliary cruisers’ war,
Stephen Robinson undertook extensive research for this book in the German, British, Australian and NZ naval records. He uncovered never-before-accessed eyewitness accounts and declassified intelligence reports. Many of the crews and passengers of the ships targeted by the raiders ended up as prisoners of war, while others were set adrift in life rafts.
