THE SEA EAGLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1917, Page 6

THE SEA EAGLE.

A BIRD OF PREY. Tiie most remarkable of all the enetoy commerce raiders, at anv rate the above-water raiders as distinguished from the U boats, was probably the Seeadler, otherwise the Sea Eagle, which, according to a cablegram a few days' ago, was sunk by a British warship 'in mid-Atlantic. The most curious thin" about the Seeadler was the fact that she was a sailing vessel, fitted with internal combustion engines it is true, but relying largely on. her square rig as ft means of working havoc among the Allied merchant fleets .in the Atlantic. One report circulated in JTcw Zealand stated that the Seeadler was identical with the British-built barque Pass of Ualmaha, a vessel of 1571 tous, but descriptions furnished in America on the arrival of the French barque Cambronne (since sunk) with released prisoners taken by the raider from various ships showed her to have been a vessel of apparently about 2800 tons. She was supposed to be a captured American barque, fitted with oil engines and screw, which was taken to Cuxhaven by a German prize crew in August, 1915, aftei being captured while on a voyage from New York to Archangel, with a cargo of cotton. She was fitted up by the enemy for privateering, and was armed ■with two 4.2 inch guns and sixteen machine guns; she was equipped with wireless, and had a crew of sixty-four men, under Count Luckner. The preparations for the raiding voyage, it is said, were perhaps the most elaborate ever devised for such an undertaking. Extreme caution was exercised to prevent news of the raider's presence being made known before she had ample opportunity to put a great distance between herself and her pursuers. The Seeadler was provisioned for eighteen months. Her supply of munitions arid explosives was unusually large. When the Cambronne was captured the guns had been mounted with the gun ports masked, and the wireless outfit had been skilfully concealed in the barque's rigging. Thus it was virtually impossible, at liny distance, to recognise her as an armed ship. She carried two gasolene launches, and they too were concealed in the raider's hold until she had eluded the patrol, and was free on the high seas. Usually the Norwegian flag was flown, and the sight of an apparently friendly sailing vessel carried no alarm to Allied merchant ships until the fatal shells came hurtling about their crews' heads. Sometimes, it was also reported, a great cloud of smoke was raised by apparatus on the Seeadler's deok, enabling her to evade pursuit under cover of her "inkfish" screen. Now, however, the piratical career of a once honest old •hip has c.'izna to an end. \ - . i-J