Ahoy Shipmates

Part 3 of the The Voyage of the SMS Seeadler

On the evening of the 5th of March, the Seeadler discovered a four-masted barque in the moonlight and signalled "Stop immediately! German Cruiser". Rather bizarrely, the captain of the 2,206 ton French ship Dupleix rowed across to Seeadler, convinced that another French captain was playing a practical joke on him. He was soon disabused of the idea when his ship was scuttled.

Seeadlers next victim on the 10th of March was asked for the time, but ignored the signal. Luckner ordered a smoke generator to be lit, and the 3,609 ton Horngarth turned back to render assistance to the 'burning' sailing ship. A single shot put the British ship's radio out of commission, and this resulted in the only loss of life in the Seeadler 's voyage. A British sailor, Douglas Page, was unfortunately killed by a steam pipe ruptured by the shot. Horngarth was soon scuttled by Seeadlers now highly experienced crew.

By this time Luckner had the problem of feeding and keeping safe nearly 300 prisoners, in addition to his own crew. Therefore, when on the 20th of March the French four-masted barque Cambronne was captured, Luckner arranged for the ship's top gallant mast and additional spars and sails to be removed, before putting his prisoners aboard Cambronne under the command of Captain Mullen of Pinmore. The much-reduced rigging on Cambronne ensured that Seeadler would be able to make good its escape before its location could be reported to the hunting ships.

The Royal Navy was very well aware of Seeadler's general location and set a trap consisting of the armed merchant cruiser Otranto and two armored cruisers at Cape Horn. However, a severe storm blew Seeadler considerably further south, before she entered the Pacific Ocean on 18 April and sailed north along the Chilean coast.

By early June, Seeadler was east of Christmas Island and learned that the United States of America had entered the war. Seeadler turned her attention to American shipping, sinking the 529 ton A B Johnson of San Francisco on 14 June, the 673 ton R C Slade the next day, and the schooner Manila on 8 July. By this time Seeadler needed to be laid up so that her hull could be scraped clean. She put into the small island of Mopelia, a coral atoll some 10 km in diameter in the Society Islands, some 450 km from Tahiti.

Regards


Sean