A Brief History of my Family in France - Part 3

Henri in Papeete in September 2014 - The Battle of Papeete

Part 1
Part 2

The Battle of Papeete (September 22nd 1914)

Every year, the French Navy was sending gunpowder to Tahiti through a commercial cargo ship.
In 1913, the captain of the cargo ship thought that the gunpowder was smelling funny, so they threw out all the gunpowder in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The result was that in August 1914, the Zélée had only about one hundred gun shells..
The German navy had several heavy ships in the Pacific Ocean, but the French Navy had only small ships, such as the gunboat Zélée.
As the Navy was fearing an attack on Papeete, the Zélée commanding officer, commander Destremau, decided to remove the guns from the ship and put the small ones on trucks and the big one in the mountain.
Henri was given the mission to move the big cannon up in the mountain.
The cannon was dismantled, but the heavy barrel was waiting more than a ton.
Henri asked for help from native Tahitians.
He was told:

• If you have beer, we will carry the barrel up to the mountain.

And several dozens of native Tahitians did carry the heavy barrel.

Two German ships from the Ostasiengeschwader (East Asia Squadron), the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrived in French Polynesia.
The goal of Admiral Maximilian von Spee was to attack Papeete to get the coal.
The two ships first stopped in the atoll of Bora Bora, 140 nautical miles (260 km) west of Papeete.
They were displaying British flags in Bora Bora.
So the local gendarme thought they were British and told the German officers the
story of the gunpowder and revealed that Papeete was quite defenseless.

The Scharnhorst

On September 22nd 1914, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau arrived in front of Papeete.
Immediately, commander Destremau ordered the coal to be set on fire.
Also, the Zélée was scuttled before the harbor, preventing any big ship to enter.
The big cannon in the mountain fired some shots, without success, as the two German ships were too far.
The small guns on trucks also fired shots, then they were moved, so that they could not be fired on successfully.
The Germans, seeing that they could not enter the harbor, contrarily to what they thought Papeete had guns ashore and the coal reserve was on fire, decided to leave.

Papeete was heavily bombarded by the German ships during the battle.
However, as the civilian population fled as soon as the battle started, the casualties were limited to two civilian deaths.

Destroyed Buildings in Papeete after the Battle

After the battle, as there were no more French ship, Henri and the crew of the Zélée helped to reconstruct the city.
They waited until another French warship arrived in Papeete.

Officers in Tahiti, including those of the Zélée. Henri is the shortest one in the back, between the executive officer on the left and the commanding officer, commander Destremau on the right.

Continue to Part 4