“COUNT von LUCKNER : THE SEA DEVIL"

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 276, 11 February 1928, Page 24

“COUNT von LUCKNER : THE SEA DEVIL"

Lowell Thomas Writes of ~‘cturesque German Adventurer Who " Spent Some

Time” in Auckland

COUNT FELIX TON LUCKNER.

nvzsnn O one nations has a monopoly of heroism and no one nation can keep her heroes to herself. J t%|M Soon or later they bei »»Lo3rl long to the world. Such is the case with one of Germany’s heroes of the Great War, for in a country that was at war with Germany nine years ago there now appears the life story and the narration of the deeds of Count Felix von Luckner. Luckner (writes S. T. Williamson, reviewing Lowell Thomas’s book, “Count Luckner, tho Sea Devil), is a bluff, picturesque, kindly, imaginative sailor. It was the fate of the German Navy to play extreme parts in the war. Nothing in maritime history matches the abjectness of the surrender of the high-seas fleet at Scapa Flow, but, on the other hand, the war brought out few episodes equal to those connected with the German commerce raiders Emden, Moewe, Seeadler and Woolf. All of these ships played gallant, lone hands in far oceans; but by far the greatest exploit of the four was that of Count Luckner’s ship, the Seeadler. She was neither swift cruiser nor equally speedy converted liner. She was a sailing ship, a Yankee-built clipper, that slipped out of Hamburg, deceived the British blockade, cruised 30,000 miles in eight months, captured 14 Allied merchantmen and destroyed millions of pounds worth of shipping and cargoes without shedding a drop of blood. Consider the background of Count Luckner as he is quoted In his own story. He is the descendant of a Saxon warrior family and was destined for the cavalry, but he chose to have his legs bowed in another fashion. He Informed his father that he would not come 'home until he wore the uniform of a German naval officer, and then he ran away to sea. He shipped first on a villainous Russian square-rigger, fell overboard, and before his shipmates could lower a boat and reach him he was saved from drowning by hanging on to the leg of a live albatross. Next he jumped ship in Australia, joined the Salvation Army, assisted the keeper of a lighthouse, hunted kangaroos for a living, trained for the prize ring, came to America, stole a

fishing boat in Vancouver, worked on a Mexican railroad, enlisted in the Mexican Army and stood guard at old Porfirio Diaz’s palace, sailed the seven seas on the windjammers of almost as many nations, broke his right leg on one voyage and his left on another, slapped a bar rag in Hoboken for a few weeks, kept a tavern in Hamburg and was toasted as the champion wrestler of the waterfront. Also at various times he saved five men from drowning and thereby was brought to the attention of the royal family of Prussia. Eventually Luckner passed examinations for the merchant marine. As a prot6g6 of the Kaiser he studied for the navy and when he received his commission he returned home and made good his boast to his father. To imagine such a career would give a writer of dime novels brain fever. It might be expected, however, that Luckner’s adventurous career demanded picturesque expression in wartime. He got his chance in 19X6. The German Admiralty ordered him to take command of a raider that was to slip through the blockade. If the British blockade was to be circumvented, the ship must be disguised as a neutral so thoroughly that not the slightest suspicion should be aroused. Luckner’s account of transforming the captured American clipper Pas of Balmaha into a fullyarmed and equipped German raider, yet with an authentic Norwegian atmosphere to decks, cabins, papers and crew, reads like the stage direction of an old-time Belasco play. The log book of a Norwegian ship was stolen from the Copenhagen docks. Part of the crew was chosen for its familiarity with the Norse language; the rest of the crew was to live in the hold, concealed underneath a deckload of lumber until the blockade should be passed. And as it was the sentimental custom of many Norwegian skippers to bring their wives with them on their voyages, Luckner gave a blonde wig and woman’s clothes to a cabin boy and commanded him to become a sea-going Julian Eltinge, should occasion arise.

It arose on Christmas Day, 1916. The raider, renamed Seeadler, had ploughed through the North Sea in a hurricane that had scattered the blockading fleet. Almost to the

northern ice packs was the ship blown, until the wind abated and British search parties came. The boarding officer took merely one look at the water-soaked papers and tipped his cap to the “wife” before leaving. The supposed Norwegian was signalled to proceed upon her voyage. Free of the blockade, the Seeadler’s first capture was made off the Azores. A leisurely Norwegian windjammer came up from the horizon, displayed her colours and a signal request for chronometer time. When the Britisher was near enough, down went the Norse flag, up went the Imperial naval standard and ports opened for guns —the old trick played hundreds of times in warfare before the age of steam. A ship or two was picked up and sunk off Gibraltar, and the captured crews were transferred to the Seeadler. The next nine seizures—British, French and an Italian —were made between Brazil and Africa. Buckner asserts that he treated his captives like guests. No group of passengers on a liner ever enjoyed such happy comradeship as did we aboard our buccaneering craft. The fact that we were captors and captives only seemed to make it all the jollier. We took the greatest pleasure in making the time agreeable for our passengers, with games, concerts, cards and storytelling. We served special meals for all the nations whose ships we captured . . . The prisoners seemed to appreciate our intentions thoroughly. They wanted to do everything they could for us in return. But with the crews of ten ships overflowing the Seeadler’s accommodation, such days of care-free hunting came to an end. Prisoners and captains were transferred to the next ship captured, its spars were shortened and the vessel limped into Buenos Ayres with the news of the Seeadler and the solution of the mystery of the long overdue merchantman. Knowing that now the allied cruisers would be after him, Luckner rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific and the South Seas, where he sunk three American ships and transferred their crews to the Seeadler. Then with the symptoms of scurvy on board the raider put in at a coral atoll for fresh food and water. . Adventures of another kind befell the German raiders and their American captives, for here a tidal wave destroyed the Seeadler. The ship’s company and their “guests” escaped to the shore and set up a Swiss Family Robinson sort of existence. Nature was munificent, but it was not war. Luckner grew restless. Within three weeks of the disaster to the Seeadler, Luckner with three of his officers and two sailors set sail in a lifeboat with the hope of capturing a trading schooner, which in turn would capture a larger ship and enable the resumption of raiding on a large scale. They cruised 2,300 miles in a month and, after a number of thrilling adventures, they were captured. Luckner and his companions could have overpowered the men who set out to capture them, but the Germans were not in uniform; so rather than violate the rules of war, Luckner played the game and submitted. They were' transported to New Zealand, where they narrowly escaped a legal lynching, and thence to an internment camp. From herp Luckner and some German merchant cadets escaped in a launch. They “captured a small trading schooner, but in turn they were recaptured by an Australian auxiliary cruiser (?) and were sent back to the prison camp. Luckner had another escape planned when the armistice came and his wartime ' career was over.