Five Months on a German Raider: Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf'Trayes, Frederic George
History
Five Months on a German Raider: Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf'
Trayes, Frederic George
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
We next picked up the _Wolf_ on the afternoon of December 19th, and
heard that since we had last seen her she had sunk a French sailing
vessel, the _Marechal Davout_, loaded with grain for Europe. The _Wolf_
usually sent us over a budget of wireless news when she had been away
from us any length of time. I remember an item of news on one occasion,
in which Mr. Lloyd George in a speech said we were getting on the track
of the submarines and that we had sunk five in one day. This gave great
mirth to the Germans, who naturally refused to believe it--they said
they had lost only a dozen since the war began! On one occasion the
Captain informed us of a "great British victory. Joy-bells are ringing
all over England. The British have captured a trench and have advanced
ten yards!" This was the victory at Cambrai!
The two ships proceeded on parallel courses for Trinidad, but about 8
p.m. both ships turned sharply round and doubled on their tracks,
proceeding on a south-easterly course at full speed. We learnt the
reason for this the next day. German raiders had previously coaled and
hidden at Trinidad; but Brazil was now in the war, so that hole was
stopped, and the _Wolf_ had intercepted a wireless from the Commander of
a Brazilian cruiser to the garrison on Trinidad. Hence her rapid flight!
But for that wireless message, the _Wolf_ would have walked right into
the trap, and we should have been free within twelve hours from the time
the _Wolf_ picked up the message.
Once again wireless had been our undoing. The _Hitachi_ had wirelessed
the hour of her arrival at and departure from Singapore and Colombo; the
_Wolf_, of course, had picked up the messages and was ready waiting for
her. One other ship, if not more, was caught in just the same way. The
_Matunga_ had wirelessed, not even in code, her departure, with the
nature of her cargo, from Sydney to New Guinea, and she wirelessed again
when within a few hours of her destination. The _Wolf_ waited for her,
informed her that she had on board just the cargo the _Wolf_ needed,
captured, and afterwards sunk her. The _Wolf's_ success in capturing
ships and evading hostile cruisers was certainly due to her intercepting
apparently indiscriminate wirelessing between ships, and between ships
and shore--at one time in the Indian Ocean the _Wolf_ was picking up
news in four languages--and to her seaplane, which enabled her to scout
thoroughly and to spot an enemy ship long before she could have been
seen by the enemy. Thus the _Wolf's_ procedure when hunting for her prey
was simplicity itself. Even without wireless her seaplane was of
enormous assistance to her. If her "bird" had revealed the presence of a
ship more heavily armed than the _Wolf_ chose to tackle, she could
easily make herself scarce, while if the ship seen was not at all, or
but lightly armed, all that the _Wolf_ had to do was to wait for her on
the course she was taking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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