Australians capture the yacht Komet

At dawn on 11 October 1914 the small Australian patrol vessel Nusa steamed into a secluded bay on the north coast of New Britain, not far from the settlement of Talasea. At anchor there lay Komet, the government yacht of German New Guinea, which had been hiding from the Australians since the outbreak of war. The Germans were taken completely by surprise and the ship was captured without a single shot.

The governor’s yacht

Komet was built in Germany in 1911. She was a trim steamer some 64 metres long, based at Rabaul. She carried colonial officials on tours of inspection around the vast colony and kept in touch with remote stations. In British lists she is sometimes called a gunboat, but her armament was token: one light gun and a machine gun. More important was her wireless station.

When the Australian squadron approached Rabaul in August 1914, Komet left port. For the following weeks she moved between hidden anchorages on the coasts of New Britain and the neighbouring islands. According to Australian naval historians, in mid-September she went as far as the island of Angaur in the Palau archipelago, where she handed over coal to the German auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich. At the beginning of October she returned to her old hiding place, a bay the Germans called Komethafen.

A morning with a razor

Meanwhile the colony had capitulated, and the Australians had begun to comb its coasts. For this they used Nusa, a small government steamer of the German administration, captured in September at Kavieng on New Ireland and armed with a single gun. She was commanded by Commander John Jackson, a British naval officer who had served for years in Australian waters, and on board was an infantry detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel John Paton. Jackson took the ship through uncharted reefs and on the morning of 11 October surprised Komet in the bay.

According to Australian accounts, the yacht’s captain was halfway through his morning shave when the boarding party came on board. Several Germans were taken prisoner (five or six, including the captain, according to various accounts), together with 52 sailors from New Guinea. Paton reported with satisfaction that the ship had been taken undamaged and that the wireless station was on board and working. Some Australian sources give the date as 10 October, but most studies give 11 October.

HMAS Una

Komet was taken to Rabaul and then to Sydney, where she was rearmed with several guns. On 17 November 1914 she was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy as HMAS Una. Until the end of the war she patrolled the waters of New Guinea and the surrounding islands. She also carried two military aircraft to New Guinea, which is sometimes presented as the first use of an Australian warship as an aircraft transport. After leaving the navy she served for many years as a pilot vessel in Port Phillip Bay in Australia.

The British chronicle of the war recorded the capture of Komet as the last act of hostilities in Australasian waters. This was only partly true. Only a week later Nusa intercepted more German vessels, and for several more weeks the Australians went on occupying the remaining islands of the former colony.