Gus is otherwise occupied at present and he thinks that you could possibly endure some “Andys Rubbish and Ramblings”, although pale in comparison to “Gus’s Gear” I hope you find my contributions of interest.
Adrienne and I made a brief visit to Wellington earlier in the week, for those questioning where on earth that may be, Wellington is New Zealands capitol city.
Wellington has a lot of history, museums and something dubbed culture. Wellington also boasts some very cool costal defence fortifications from the 1890’s “Russian Scare” and later emplacements from the Second World War, built to defend this far flung nation from the threat of Japanese invasion, its a great place to spend some time, especially if you have done your homework and know where to look for these interesting remnants.
Many of our First World War servicemen and women left our shores from Wellington, my grandfather included. He sailed for Europe in December 1914, or at least that’s what he thought. He actually ended up on the beaches of Gallipoli fighting to gain mere yards of hostile ground only to be lost again within hours, minutes or at times days, many New Zealanders never left Gallipoli and the “lucky” ones made it into the trenches of the Western Front where many more New Zealanders made the ultimate sacrifice. My grandfather made it through the War, he was wounded multiple times and spent a lot of time recuperating in hospitals in England. He came home after the war, he was shell shocked and his wartime experiences troubled him for the rest of his life, he suffered from nightmares and was haunted by the screams of the wounded in no mans land. My Grandfathers experience echoed the wartime experiences of many soldiers. Irrespective of their origins, these men shared a common bond and this is reflected in the many memorials and services commenting the dead and those that served right up to this day.
Wheres the Imperial German connection? We are getting there….New Zealand was quite a new colony within the British Empire and we were keen to prove our worth and join the fight. War trophies were very important (as they were to other nations) and New Zealand was allocated its fair share of trophy guns, in particular NZ Division captured artillery, minenwerfers and machine guns were significant trophies. Many of the aforementioned were distributed to towns, local councils, schools and other interested organisations. Towns wanting trophies were allocated a suitable memorial item which reflected the size of the contribution in manpower of said region. Many trophy guns were dutifully displayed, eventually the novelty wore off and the guns fell into disrepair. There was little money to be wasted on their upkeep as we were suffering through the Great Depression. Prior to WW2 Japan was keen on buying scrap metal ad the abundance of artillery pieces and the opportunity for some fast cash had a lot of our WW1 trophies head across the pacific (I wonder what they were melted down and recycled into?).
During the Second World War, many of the guns on display went into hiding so as not to become targets for that much feared Japanese invasion. The scrap man was rounding up dilapidated artillery well into the 60’s and 70’s. Sadly today, these trophies are quite scarce, There has been a bit of a renaissance as they are now well protected and for the most part, well kept.
Wellington has a fantastic trophy gun in the form of a siege gun, the gun is said to have been captured at La Vacquerie (North East France) by the New Zealand Division on the 29th of September 1918, two battalions of the Wellington Regiment were involved in this action which was part of an attack on the Hindenburg line of defences. Although an article in the Auckland Star credited the capture of this gun to Col S.S. Allens 2nd Auckland Infantry battalion near Welsh Ridge. I suspect the official record is correct.
The Gun is a 13cm K09 Krupp Gun, which exhibits slight battle damage. The gun was displayed in several locations around Wellington and now sits overlooking the Wellington Harbour in the Botanical Gardens which can be accessed by road or via cable car from the CBD. I believe there are very few surviving examples of the K09 from the original 190 or so manufactured.
The gun is serial number 4, and was manufactured in 1907. The barrel has the crest of the house if Hohenzollern, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Prussian Family, with the motto Ultima Ratio Regis (The Kings Final Argument ). Its last restoration was undertaken 1999-2001, I note the gun has been recently repainted with a thick coating of paint making it a little hard to see the crest detail. However being rather exposed the air will help with the overall preservation of this incredible artefact. The K09 was capable of firing 42kg shell some 16,500 meters.
Note, I’m not an expert on anything, rather I’m an enthusiastic collector with a passion for history. I have no idea to speak or write Germsn so if there’s any grammatical errors that’s just me ( that goes for English also, I went to school to eat my lunch…)I endeavour to get the details correct.
Regards
Andrew