Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 311, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1918 — TELLS EXPLOITS OF THE SEEADLER [ARTICLE]

TELLS EXPLOITS OF THE SEEADLER

Navy Department Gets the Story From Captain of an American Schooner. i WRECKED ON CORAL REEF Seventeen Ships Captured by German Raider In Spectacular Cruises in Two Oceans —Hoodwinks British by Clever Ruse. Washington.— The full story of the cruise of the German commerce raider Seeadler has been obtained by the navy department frpm Capt. Haldor Smith of the-American schooner R. C. Slade and three other mariners, who landed at TutUila in an open boat September 29 after being marooned on Mopeha island by the master of the Seeadler when the raider grounded and was abandoned. The Seeadler, formerly the American ship Pass of Balmaha, was captured by a German submarine and sent to Bremen and fitted out as a raider. A picked crew was placed aboard, some of whom spoke Norwegian, and sent out into the Atlantic under the guise of a Norwegian ship. The ruse worked so well that after leaving Bremen on December 21, 1916, the Seeadler was held up by the British auxiliary cruiser Highland Scout, examined and passed. Captured Seventeen Ships. Captain Smith learned that while cruising in the Atlantic 13 ships, valued by the Germans at 60,000,000 marks, were captured and four in the Pacific. Relating the story of the capture

of his ship, the Slade, Captain Smith said: „ '/ “I left Sydney on April 24, 1917, and proceeded without any incident until the evening of June 17, when the second mate reported to me that a ship was firing on us. She was about eight miles off. There was a heavy squall starting eastward—wind favorable to this time, and I thought it possible to get aw 7 ay and kept holding on. But she kept firing on me at intervals of about five to ten minutes and was coming up on me fast. “I concluded (hat there wasn’t any use and I lowered down spanker, clewed down topsail, hoisted the American flag, and.hove to, Shortly after the prize officer came aboard and a doctor and about ten men. These officers were in uniform. They told me to leave the ship and; to go on board the raider and they woul-d give me time in the morning to p&ck my clothes. . “They took all our men aboard the raider except the cook. Next- morning I went buck on board with all my men -and packed up. We left the ship with our belongings on June 18. We were put on board the raider again. Shortly after I saw from the raider that they cut holes in the masts and placed dynamite bombs in each mast and put fire to both ends of the ship and left her.” ■ Captain Smith said the* raider was a full-rigged ship of steel about 2,300 tons, propelled by oil

burning engines. Tier captain was Felix Graf von 'Buckner. When the men from the Slade arrived aboard the raider they found nine prisoners from the American schooner A. B. Johnson of San Frnnclsco, captured three days, before. On July 8, Smith stated, the schooner »la- ' nila was captured and dynamited after nils was captured and dynamited. For about three weeks the raider kept beating up and down looking for passing ships. Meeting none, they went south to Mopeha on July 31, | anchored on the lee side of the island, and on. August 2 the ship, was driven hard nihd 'fast ashore. After working all afternoon they gave her up as lost and took ashore everything they could move, including the boats, gear and wireless. The wireless plant, A very powerful one, whs set up between two coconut trees. On August 23, Captain .Smith related, the German officers fitted up and armed a small boat and started for the Cook islands or the Fiji islands, where they hoped to capture an American ship a mi-come back for the crew. Count von Buckner, the master, was in charge. They were never heard of'again at Mapeha island. Oh September 5 a French trading sclioonef from Papeete, the Butece, put in at the island. First Bieuteriant Kling took a motor boat and machine gun and captured the ship. She had a large cargo of flour, salmon and beef and a supply of water. Kling and his crew dismantled the wireless plant and left the island in the Butece that night* leaving 48 souls, including the Americans.

A small boat had been left behind, and the marooned men fitted it up. The captain of the Manila, with a small crew, started out in the boat for Tahiti on September 8. They failed to reach Tahiti and returned exhausted on September 16. Captain Smith, with three men, took the small boat and managed to reach Pago Pago ten days later. Recent dispatches indicate that the captain of the Seeadler and five of his crew were captured on September 21 off the Fiji islands by Fijian constabulary. What became of the men who left Mopeha island in the Butece is not known. .