THE DEUTSCHLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1945, 27 February 1919, Page 2

THE DEUTSCHLAND.

MERCHANTMAN AND PIRATE,

The famous submarine “merchantman” Deutschland, which made two voyages to the United Stales, is among those now in English hands. She was visited on the Thames, near the Tower of London, by a newspaper reported, who wrote; — Before becoming a sea pirate known as the U-155, the Deutschland made two trans-Atlantic voyages in 1910, and there was much big talk in Germany of the German under-the-water mercantile marine which was to wrest the trident from Britannia's hands. But nothing much came of these commercial dreams.

German seamen who brought the Deutschland to Harwich for the great surrender said that their submarine had been responsible for Ihe sinking of many craft, but chiefly in the Baltic. At the surrender she was in dirty condition. A British crew is rapidly altering all that, and getting the boat ready for the admission of the public. But neither officers nor men have yet tackled the store of preserved foods which lies in a cubby-hole below-decks. Jt will have to be cleared out soon, but no one is anxious yet to disturb the unsavoury looking collection of (ins from which the labels have peeled in the (dose atmosphere. A. walk along the deck of the Deutschland covers the 815 feet of her length. Visitors who remember the wonderful .tales of life in his “great green whale” which were .-pun by Captain Paul Koenig on her first arrivalHn Baltimore, P.S.A., will want to see first of all llie control room. Here is the periscope. Nearby is the marine compass, an instrument which has been wonderfully developed to meet the special needs of the modern submarine. The readings of this compass can be registered in different parts of the vessel.

In his fairy tales fur American consumption Captain Koenig .drew pictures of himself anxiously watching on a diving gunge the progress of the dive which the Deutschland was performing to evade British battleships. Here is the very gauge, and close by are the alarm gongs which sounded in the control room at the pushing of a button above decks, and sent the crew to their diving stations. The 17ft. holds in which the Deutschland carried her first cargo to America were converted in the course of her later career into storing space for torpedoes. Two 21iu, torpedo tubes are now lilted into the forepart of the Deutschland, and ou deck is still to be seen her wireless aerials.