Attacks on Nauru

6–27 December 1940, Nauru, central Pacific

German success; five phosphate ships sunk and the loading plant shelled

The raiders Orion and Komet, with the supply ship Kulmerland, joined forces in the Pacific in late 1940. Komet had come round the north of Siberia with Soviet icebreakers. Nauru's phosphate fed the farms of Australia and New Zealand, and ships waited off the island to load it. Between 6 and 8 December the raiders sank five of them, Triona, Vinni, Komata, Triadic and Triaster, and took more than 500 prisoners, most of whom they landed on Emirau Island. Bad weather stopped a landing on Nauru itself. On 27 December Komet came back alone and shelled the loading plant, oil tanks and mooring buoys for about an hour. It was the most damaging German raid in Australian waters, and led to convoys and a garrison for the phosphate islands.