Born in Bellingen in 1939, and a skipper of MV Krait after it became an Australian Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol vessel, Fred has drawn upon Australian maritime museum  records, as well as Japanese, German and English records to gather information on 43 ships involved in wartime engagements, from southern Queensland (six attacked, three sunk), along the entire NSW coastline (32 attacked, 18 sunk) and down into northern Victoria (five attacked, four sunk).

Alongside a dot marking an approximate location, the entries for each ship show the date of engagement, name of the ship, its country of origin, tonnage, lives lost, lives saved, the nature of the damage to the ship, and whether the incident involved a Japanese or German submarine or a mine.

A notable sinking off the MId North Coast was the Australian ship Wollongbar, attacked by Japanese sub 1-180 on 29 April 1943, with 32 lives lost and five rescued.

Earlier that same month, the Ormiston suffered torpedo damage and the Norwegian ship Fingal  was sunk with 12 lives lost.

In June 1943 off Nambucca Heads, US ship Portmar was sunk and a landing barge suffered major torpedo damage.

Fred Schmitzer’s map shows in graphic detail just how determined Japan and Germany were in their attempts to destroy supply lines connecting Australia to the fighting in New Guinea.

Over the last decade, Fred has picked through the archives, painstakingly collating information from multiple sources, in order to demonstrate how close war came to our shores. 

“Even the RSL in Sydney didn’t realise there were so many ships sunk in so close an area,” he said. “People are just astounded by the amount of ships involved.

“The point is, you can look at archives on the computer, and you might get the date and the name of the ship and the sub, but you don’t get any of this other information. I had to go through archives in Australia, England Germany and Japan.”

Fred noted that the dots on his map represent an approximate location for each incident, as precise longitude and latitude figures are often disputed.

“That’s where I reckon they are,” he said.

Fred Schmitzer can be contacted on 66 514 032.