Dutch Submarines: The submarine K IX

Early June 1945: While being towed out of Sydney (departure 6th or 7th June, heading for Darwin) by the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen the tow breaks and K IX is driven ashore (7/8 June). The loss of the tow is not noticed by the Abraham Crijnssen crew until sunrise at June 8. A plane is called in to search for the submarine. Around 15:00 hrs the plane spots the K 9. The submarine is not yet stranded, but the search is called off because it is getting dark. The next day (June 9) at 10:15 hrs the plane spots K 9 once again. But now the submarine is wrecked on Fiona Beach, Seal Rocks, on the central coast of New South Wales (3 miles WSW of Sugar Loaf Point). Abraham Crijnssen tries to tow the hulk of the beach but because of the storm they have to give it up. Because of the high cost involved the Dutch Navy does not attempt again to get the hulk afloat.

20 July 1945: The "Commonwealth Disposals Commission" sells the wreck (still on the beach) of K IX for scrap iron to Messrs Humphrey & Batt of Sydney for the sum of 985 pounds. Locals already started getting the diesel engine out manually. The new owners recover the rest of the fuel but not the hull as it is buried too deeply to move.

Shortly after the auction the buyers arrived in the area to strip the vessel of all valuable metals. Special vehicle tracks were laid down through the bush and over sand dunes to reach the stranded submarine.

K IX stranded on Fiona Beach, 1945. (Photo: © Collection N. Peters).

Checkout the K IX photo special for more images of the stranded sub.

Historic submarine K IX found, and the K IX photo special.

Year and date unknown

Below a very interesting letter, concerning the K 9, written by H. Batt

Re enquiry from (Watson) Navy News, 22 July, about what became of Submarine K9, I am the bloke who can tell him. That tin opener you cook with during mum’s absence could well be part of her foc’sle ladder; likewise part of her deck plating became the paddles on a stern wheeler that transported timber from Bungwahl to Port Stevens. Some of her stop valves are still irrigating citrus orchards in Gosford. Two-tons of her lead ballast were boiled down in one of the first Australian’s drinking tanks at Kirkness’ sawmill in Gosford and cast into a keel for the ketch JOHN B. SETREE which is now trading in the Pacific Islands. My garage is full of K9 including the teak hatches from the battery compartment wherein, I learn from (Watson) there was an explosion, which accounts for one of them being partly burnt.

The remains of her hull now lie under thirty feet of sand three miles south of Seal Rocks Lighthouse and one mile north of the wreck of old FIONA on Fiona Beach, but you will have to negotiate miles of sand hills to get there. On K9’s deeply buried keel, composed of lead in ton blocks, lies a fortune of six thousand quid. In the first AUSTRALIA in the North Sea during the first war, whilst the old war-horse was shipping them green (close those damn ports), I dreamed of the day when I would be picking luscious oranges from my own citrus grove whilst reclining in the shade with one of those; (NO of course not, we were denied the luxury of such beautiful creatures as grace the RAN). No more scrubbing decks, no 10A, everything tranquil with someone to lash up the old fleabag (hammock) and do the dobeying, all this and more came to pass, as the bible says.

I was not the only one on that ship suffering such hallucinations. No sir, Assistant Paymaster LCDR MOSSE-ROBINSON was also afflicted with the same malady and fate decreed that he had his quarter deck on the orchard adjoining mine but that is another story. Alas one stormy night during the last war, I was having some shut-eye in the middle watch when I was awakened by a violent shaking of the four poster. Occasionally the goat shoved in the back door and combed its hair on the hammock clews, but this goat did more than that it could talk. Opening my optics I expected to behold Harry ISLES the Bull of Whale Island, instead I saw my wayward son who appeared to have fallen in the drink, whilst outside was a jalopy coughing its asthmatic way though a bag of wet charcoal while torrential rain threatened to put the gas producer out of action. "Cummon Pop, I’m taking you for a ride", said my young hopeful. "Like hell you are" I replied, "have you come here to help drive the tractor or to put in the nips for a few quid?"

His reply made me realise my mistake in not shoving him into the navy to become an admiral, it was the first indication that his veins contained even a minute quality of NELSON’s Blood. "Well Pop now that you mention it a thousand quid would just about see me through this week."
That seemed to be taking Pop for a ride all right, with Mum hanging on behind. "Get up Pop and put on a coat, you’ll need it, the old jalopy leaks like hell, we are off to Seal Rocks a submarine is drifting off there somewhere, I going to buy it and make you the skipper of it." I had often wondered how some of the blokes I sailed with became Skippers! "Look son you go and turn in with that other goat in the barn and I’ll take you to a psychiatrist in the morning".

Imagine a matelot rearing a kid who had no ambition to follow his dear old dad by starting and remaining on the lousy bottom rung of the ladder, but was determined to start at the top, appoint his own officers and even own a navy! Like a sensible matelot, I turned over on the other tack and went to sleep with the sound of the old heap of junk wheezing its way down the drive en-route to Seal Rocks. Two days later it staggered to a stop outside the door, whilst its driver tried to sell me shares in the K9 then drifting amongst rocks and plain liability to anyone daft enough to become the owner.
Before that week was out the blessed tranquillity of the orange ranch was in danger of drifting on the rocks, as was her want (whatever the hell that means). Mum appeared in the orchard this time without the seven baller, as the tractor drew near I saw the light of battle in her eyes, I was used to that with Crushers but not with Mum.

My family calls me mostly two names, there are others of course for occasions when I entertained Fruit Inspectors with beer from the fridge, (talk about snivelling to Crushers). With everything running on ball bearings I’m Arold, let one wheel slip a cog and I’m Joe, this morning I knew I was Joe before I stopped the tractor to listen. "Now cummon Joe how much did you lend him Joe? Wot about my washing machine when we win the lottery and all that fertiliser to grow oranges that are going rotten in the packing shed, now cummon how much did you give him? I want to know Joe or I ring up the bank."
"I just heard all about it on the wireless; a young engineer in the inspection branch of the Air Ministry had the stranded K9 knocked down to him at Strange’s Auction Room for ni-ni-nine hundred and eighty qu-qu-quid. (Here her voice raised to a crescendo until it sounded like half a million.) He is going to tow it to Sydney to sell back to the RAN, but you are not going in it Joe. (New carpets, lino in the kitchen, hot water over the sink, when we win the lottery.) Don’t think you are going to be a big fellow bringing that submarine through Sydney Heads like you told me you brought the AUSTRALIA in 1913.

I might have sent the balloon up properly by asking how she knocked the gate out with the car; instead I started the tractor to drown the lottery win. To give this financial wizard his due I had not lent or given him a bean, for the following weeks Mum was trying to make the wireless talk while one of its valves was in the creek.

K9’s ballast tanks contained 27,000 gallons of diesel fuel and was being towed up to New Guinea when the towrope parted and it drifted into shoal waters. Unwittingly I did become a shareholder in this floating risk, this budding Minister for the Navy, his mate and what looked like a human derelict called and swiped my truck, a pumping engine and everything else they thought Pop wouldn’t miss until it was gone.

I wondered why the derelict was included in the salvage crew, he was dumped on board with three loves of bread and told to repel boarders who might claim the ship while they returned to Sydney to hire a tug. Tug owners are not stupid, they came back with the truck full of blokes, ‘convenient Williams’ and miles of wire for Pop to splice in his stand-easy time, then they found the crew had deserted, having scoffed the mungy he hopped over the side and swam ashore, they found the poor cow in the sand hills looking for paddy melons.

To cut a long story short there is a lesson here that we old salt pork fed matelots might learn from the younger generation. Two youths worked like niggers and made a pile of dough out of K9. Miles of copper tubing were taken out and straightened to lay a pipeline over the sand hills, the fuel was pumped through it to the end of an improvised road seven miles long, from there it was taken to Taree and sold to Peter’s Ice Cream factory. Ten tons of ingot lead was removed from the bilges, four phosphor bronze torpedo tubes brought two hundred quid each, one generator was sold to Tiona Caravan Park. Everything that could be removed with gelignite was salvaged, the hull being galvanised, was a dead loss; oxy cutters worth 25 bob each burned out in the dozens.

A hole cut in the ship’s side to remove a diesel engine sealed her doom, during a storm it filled with sand and has been gradually sinking, it would pay you navy blokes to borrow Garden Island’s crane for a week and get after her keel.

At the risk of wearing the reader I will add a little more to this fantastic but none the less true story. While this budding shipowner was wrecking the sub a Westland Widgeon plane fell into Leggs Swamp nearby, and broke a wing and propeller, thus more junk was added to the Navy-cum-Air Force magnate’s pile of wreckage. Out went my tractor and implements; the barn then became the first and only hanger in Gosford. Now don’t howl about your kids joining the navy at least you have a fair idea of what they are going to do next. Thank you Navy News for publishing that picture of K9 her admiral will be pleased to see it.

Yours sincerely,
"Lofty" H. BATT.

1969

Early Jan 1969: In Aug 2001 Ann Richardson writes: " . .My brother Robert Gottery was about 17 years old at the time and saw the wreck of the K IX in early January, 1969. He too claims that he could walk the length of its deck and that the hull was intact. . ."

Locals stripped some of the internal hull of copper pipe, etc in years when the vessel was exposed, but local identities today recall being able to walk the full length of the deck in 1969, and partially in 1984. It therefore appears that the hull is largely intact, although the conning tower appears to have been removed prior to the loss, when the vessel was converted to a fuel lighter (tanker).

1974

1974: During the 1974 gale the K IX wreck is washed out. This level of exposure will not be witnessed again until Sept 2001.

1977

14 January 1977: The part of Fiona Beach where K IX ran ashore is officially renamed Submarine Beach to recall the lost vessel.

1984

1999

July 1999: Maritime Archaeologists from the NSW Heritage Office are preparing to search for the wreck of the ex-Dutch submarine, K IX. This boat washed ashore at Submarine Beach near Seal Rocks in NSW, Australia, after a towing accident in 1945. While the wreck is now buried under beach sands, its approximate position is known. A magnetometer survey will attempt to relocate the site and some limited probing to determine its buried depth. Few archival records survive for the vessel in Australia, even though it was commissioned into the Royal Australian NAVY during WWII. The team is hoping to detect the wreck on Tuesday 20 July when they attempt the first beach search.

20 July 1999: The wreck of K IX is relocated by a team from the NSW Heritage Office. Team member Tim Smith reports:

".....The wreck of K IX was last observed in 1984 after heavy seas removed large volumes of sand from the site. Local fishermen however, all had slightly different recollections as to where it lay on Submarine Beach near Seal Rocks, NSW, Australia. We covered these areas using a Ferex Magnetometer which discounted each of these areas. We then checked a position marked on a coastal chart of the area which was derived from earlier aerial photography. We detected the wreck site beneath the sand of the beach. It is buried in three meters of sand and lies approximately at 35 degrees to the shore, with the bow pointing south and inland. The site is too deeply buried to inspect further. We will have to wait until heavy seas next expose it, perhaps in another 10-20 years !!....."

Click on of these links for photos or on the search.

2000

10 May 2000: Tim Smith reports " . . .believe it or not, the K IX was actually slightly uncovered from the 10th of May. Portions are still (end of May) visible, but not enough sand has temporarily washed off the beach to expose it. The event is significant though as it confirms that the site we located on 20 July 1999 remotely, it was the correct wreck ! . . ."

Other sources report that a portion of a vertical semi-circular casing is partially exposed.

2001

March 2001: Tim Smith reports " . . . .the NSW Heritage Office is organizing a ceremony at the Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse near Seal Rocks, NSW, Australia, where an interpretative plaque to the submarine K IX will be unveiled. The plaque will be mounted outside on the sea shore a few kilometres north of where the wreck lies. It will be launched by the Deputy Premier of NSW, the Hon Dr Andrew Refshauge MP, with invited guests including the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Ex Servicemen & Women's Association (Australia), the Naval Historical Society of Australia, the Submarines Association of Australia, etc. The event will take place on Friday 23 March 2001 at 12pm. . . "

Click for more info and photos of the ceremony

Mid Sept 2001: The K IX has re-emerged from its sandy grave after king tides in the area. This level of exposure has not been witnessed for 27 years, when the submarine became similarly washed out during the 1974 gale.

Click here for more on the exposure or photos of the revealed wreck.

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