A picture of Count Felix von Luckner in uniform in 1919
In the early part of World War 1, Felix von Luckner saw action at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and during the Battle of Jutland he commanded a gun turret aboard the battleship Kronprinz Wilhelm.
At the beginning of the First World War, Germany converted a considerable number of merchant ships into merchant raiders by equipping them with guns and sending them in search of Allied merchant shipping. Most of the armed raiders were not particularly successful, but they did tie up considerable Allied forces in hunting them. By early 1915, most of the armed raiders had either been hunted down and sunk or had run out of fuel and been interned in neutral ports.
A picture of the SMS Seeadler, the three-masted windjammer that raided the Atlantic and Pacific in an age of dreadnoughts.
Hoping to revive commerce raiding, the Imperial Navy equipped the impounded three-masted sailing ship Pass of Balmaha (1571 tons) with two 105 mm guns hidden behind hinged gunwales, several machine guns, and two carefully hidden 500 HP auxiliary engines. She was commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser Seeadler (Sea Eagle). As one of the few officer’s in the German Navy at that time with experience of large sailing ships, Luckner was appointed her commander.
In pre war days von Luckner had sailed at Cowes in England aboard the Krupp yacht Germania, and had seen service in the American Golden Shore, a four masted schooner, and had also sailed in the British Pinmore in 1902, she was another four master. Further experience in sail was gained in the German Caesarea, and the Canadian schooner Flying Fish, thus he had a very reasonable grounding in the art of serving at sea under sail.
It is reported that von Luckner's story telling and magic abilities made him something of a favourite with Kaiser Wilhelm, so it was no great surprise that he was appointed Captain of the first sailing ship to be fitted out as a Raider, despite the fact that he was only thirty four years old, and that he had to overcome the raised objections of Senior Officers who thought they were more deserving of this command.
The next instalment will cover some more information on the the SMS Seeadler.
Regards
Sean
