The operations of the German disguised merchant raiders or auxiliary cruisers were cloaked in such secrecy that any mention of the subject brings a rash of questions from Naval officers and laymen alike. Were there any raiders in World War II like S.M.S. Moewe, Wolf, or Count Luckner’s Seeadler in the previous war? Where did they operate? What did they do?
The merchant raider or disguised auxiliary cruiser is the weapon of the minor sea power; the sea power which has no cruising navy and whose ocean going commerce is non-existent or has been swept from the seas. In World War II the Germans had twelve disguised merchant raiders; nine of them made eleven cruises lasting from five to twenty-one months. These raiders sank a grand total of one hundred and thirty-six war and merchant ships of 850,000 gross tons. This is the narrative of the cruise of Schiff 16, the Atlantis. Although she was the first raider to run the Allied blockade, she was not definitely identified until two other raiders were known to be at sea, and therefore she was known by the British as “Raider C” rather than “Raider A” or “B.”
The Atlantis, or Schiff 16, as she was officially known, was originally the express cargo ship Goldenfels of the German Hansa Line. Built in 1937, she ran from Germany to Seattle until the war started in September 1939. Three days after Neville Chamberlain delivered his fateful message of failure and “peace in our time” was proved a myth, the Goldenfels was ordered to proceed to the Weser Yard at Bremen. There, three months later, her conversion was completed and she became Hilfskreuzer II. To all outward appearances she was still a peaceful cargo ship, but hidden behind that innocent exterior was a formidable armament: six 5.9-inch, one 3-inch, and a dozen smaller guns; twin torpedo tubes were mounted on each side amidships, and two more below the waterline. In addition she had equipment to stow and launch two seaplanes and she carried one hundred contact mines. Extra fuel and water tanks had been installed and her forward holds were fitted up as quarters for a crew of 350 men.
Even her exterior had been so altered that in a matter of hours her identity could be completely changed. By altering the height and rake of her masts and kingposts, by manipulating a canvas dummy funnel and by the extensive use of canvas screens and paint, she could change from the German Goldenfels to the Norwegian Tamesis, to the Dutch Abbekerk or to any of the hundred or so other ships she resembled.
The Goldenfels proceeded to Kiel, where on 15 December 1939, she was commissioned as Schiff 16, a regular warship in the German Navy. She did not receive her unofficial name, Atlantis, until after she had put to sea. Her commanding officer was Kapitan zur See Bernhard Rogge. For the next two and a half months he trained his ship and tested his crew. Then late in February he loaded fuel and stores and took on ammunition and a cargo of mines.
Schiff 16 sailed from Kiel on 11 March 1940. She passed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and conducted further training operations in Helgoland Bight. During these operations in German waters Schiff 16 was disguised as a two-funneled naval auxiliary. Altering her identity just before leaving Helgoland Bight to the Norwegian freighter Knute Nelson and every possible preparation having been completed, she started northwards on 31 March, moving slowly up the Norwegian coast. On 3 April she turned west and headed out to sea.
For her voyage to the north of Iceland and through the Denmark Straits she changed her identity again to the Russian naval auxiliary Kim. After exchanging signals with the U-37 on 4 April she broke through the Denmark Straits, depending for protection upon bad weather and the confusion created by the invasion of Norway. On 7 April Kapitan Rogge sent a radio message to the Naval Operations Staff that Schiff 16 had successfully run the Allied blockade. She then moved down through the Atlantic, avoiding the few ships she sighted and leaving the Azores and the Cape Verdes well to the eastwards, and passed the Equator on 22 April. Realizing that the presence of a Russian ship in the South Atlantic was very unlikely, on 27 April she changed her identity still another time, this time to the Japanese freighter Kashii Maru.
While moving southeastwards along the Freetown-Capetown route on the morning of 5 May, she sighted an unidentified ship about 500 miles off Cape Frio, Portuguese West Africa. Although Kapitan Rogge had been ordered by the Naval Operations Staff to make no attacks until his initial mission, the mining of Capetown, had been completed, he, fearing that the ship would report the sighting, decided to attack her. Turning and coming up on the enemy’s starboard quarter, he opened fire. The enemy immediately sent out an RRRR (“Attacked by enemy raider”) signal, but ceased transmitting and hove to when ordered to do so. When boarded she turned out to be the British freighter Scientist en route from Durban via Freetown to England with a general cargo. Kapitan Rogge, after taking her crew aboard his own ship, sank Scientist with a torpedo.
Continuing southeastwards around the Cape of Good Hope, he turned, moved close inshore, and on the night of 10-11 May laid 94 mines off Cape Agulhas. One of the mines broke loose and washed ashore; the British, forewarned, rerouted traffic so no ships were lost on this field. Rogge then moved into the Indian Ocean to attack the shipping routes there.
Having changed his ship’s disguise to that of the Dutch motor ship Abbekerk, Rogge selected the Australia-South Africa route as his initial operating area. His first victim in this area was the Norwegian motor ship Tirranna, which he captured on 10 June about 450 miles northeast of Mauritius. She was bound from Australia to Suez via Durban with military stores. Like Scientist, Tirranna sent out an RRRR signal and tried to escape, but she was shelled and forced to stop. Rogge put a prize crew aboard, and in order to leave the regular shipping route, moved southwards for twenty-four hours before heaving to. Having transferred Tirranna’s papers to the raider and left orders for the Tirranna to effect repairs and wait about 800 miles to the south, Rogge moved off to the northeast towards the Malacca Straits-Colombo route, overhauling his engines as he went.
On 18 June Rogge altered his ship’s identity to that of the Norwegian motor ship Tarifa, the disguise she was to use until the end of December 1940. Rogge’s new operating area was in the southern part of the Bay of Bengal to the southeast of Ceylon, and it was in this area that he first used his seaplane to any extent. On approaching his victims he signaled that he was a British armed merchant cruiser conducting a routine search. In this manner he sank the British ships City of Bagdad on 11 July and Kemmendine on 13 July. In each case Rogge, having received a sighting report from his seaplane, shadowed his victim for several hours, closed to about two miles, ordered her to halt and then attacked her with shellfire when she sent out an RRRR signal and attempted to escape. Having taken off the crew, he sank the ship with scuttling charges.
For his operations between 14 July and 22 July, Rogge chose the area to the south of the Chagos Archipelago on the Mauritius- Sabang route—the hunting ground of S.M.S. Emden during World War I. During the next ten days he moved back toward the Australia-South Africa route where on 30 July, he met Tirranna at the prearranged spot in the central Indian Ocean and spent the following three days in transferring fuel, stores and prisoners from Schiff 16 to Tirranna. Visibility was poor on the morning of 1 August and the Norwegian freighter Talleyrand practically stumbled on the meeting point to be captured before she could send out a distress call. The next day Rogge transferred her crew to Tirranna and then sank Talleyrand. After sinking the Talleyrand, he sent Tirranna with a prize crew into Bordeaux.
For the next two months Rogge operated in the Mauritius-Rodriguez area, and he found the hunting excellent. On 24 August, he sank the British freighter King City, and on 9 September, the British tanker Athelking. The day after this last attack Rogge sank the British freighter Benarty, which had been previously located and unsuccessfully attacked by the raider’s seaplane.
Schiff 16 now had too many prisoners aboard, and Rogge began to hunt for a prison ship. Late on the afternoon of 19 September, he sighted a passenger ship, and in hope of using her to carry his prisoners, he shadowed her all that night. Unfortunately, when attacked early the next morning, this ship, the ex-French passenger ship Commissaire Ramel, caught fire and sank.
After sinking Commissaire Ramel, Rogge moved to the west at slow speed, overhauling his ship’s engines as he went. Pressed by his need for a prison ship even more than before, he hoped to find one off the Sunda Straits. Fortunately for him, on 22 October his communications section intercepted a message from the Yugoslav freighter Durmilor to her agents. Rogge immediately approached the freighter’s estimated position and launched his seaplane. After the seaplane had sighted the Durmilor, he closed and captured her without resistance. He used the excuse that there was contraband in the cargo and put a prize crew of two officers and twelve men aboard with orders to meet him about 200 miles south of Christmas Island on 26 October. After proceeding separately to the rendezvous point, the two ships met and Rogge transferred 264 prisoners to Durmilor which was then ordered to Mogadishu, Italian Somaliland.
Rogge, freed of the encumbrance of his prisoners, moved northwestward. During the afternoon of 7 November, the raider’s seaplane, which was sent out on searches twice a day, sighted a tanker. Rogge made contact early the next morning. Working up to full speed, he closed and signaled, “What ship?” "Teddy, Oslo; Who are you?” came the answer. “Armed merchant cruiser H.M.S. Antenor, heave to and be searched,” signaled Kapitan Rogge. Teddy stopped, and a prize crew boarded her without resistance. Informed that she was en route from Abadan to Singapore, with a cargo of fuel oil, Rogge detached her with orders to meet him later at “Pt. Mangrove” which was off Christmas Island.
“Pt. Mangrove” was a code name for a prearranged position of exact longitude and latitude. The Germans used code names for all routes (colors), meeting points (usually common given names or historical names), and waiting areas. For example the South Atlantic waiting area was “Komponisten” (composers), and the meeting points within the area were named Wagner, Gluck, Mozart, etc.
Two days later Rogge tried the same ruse, but on this occasion it failed. This time his victim, the Norwegian tanker Ole Jacob laden with 110,000 barrels of aviation gasoline, was suspicious, sent out an RRRR signal, and then reported being stopped by an armed merchant cruiser. Kapitan Rogge had both messages cancelled in plain code, put a prize crew aboard her and then detached her with orders to meet him on 15 November off Christmas Island. Just after daybreak the following morning, 11 November, when Ole Jacob was hardly over the horizon, Kapitan Rogge attacked and sank the British freighter Aulomedon. Automedon had picked up Ole Jacob's radio signals and she refused to heave to until crippled by the raider’s shellfire.
Rogge quite correctly calculated that the British would conduct an extensive search, since he had sunk three ships in the same small area within four days, so he moved to the southwest toward the Sundra Straits where he arrived early on the morning of 13 November. There he met and refueled from his prize, the tanker Teddy, after which she was sunk. The next day the raider met Ole Jacob and kept her in company until 19 November, when she was ordered to Japan.
On 23 November, Rogge received a message from the Naval Operations Staff which ordered him to remain north of latitude 30 South, from 25 November until 15 December, so that Schiff 16 would not interfere with the operations of the raider Pinguin (Schiff 33). Pinguin was expected to move into the area below, to the south of 30 South, after laying mines in Australian waters. Later he was ordered to meet the Pinguin and her prize, the tanker Storsladt. On 10 December Schiff 16 refueled from and provided a prize crew for Storstadt.
It is interesting to observe the close control that the German Naval Staff kept over these raiders, a control that was developed to an even greater extent with the second group of raiders. During World War I the raiders had strict orders not to break radio silence, but the German Naval Staff devised a system whereby all the alternatives would be lettered or numbered and the raider could acknowledge receipt by merely repeating a single letter for ten or fifteen seconds.
Following' his instructions Rogge then moved southward, arriving on 14 December at Gazelle Bay in the Kerguelen Islands, which are an uninhabited French possession in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, an almost perfect place for overhaul. From 15 December 1940 to January 1941, engines were overhauled, water supply replenished and the raider’s hull scraped and painted, altering her identity to that of the Norwegian motorship Tamesis.
Refitting completed, Rogge took his ship north to operate at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel, off the Seychelles Islands. During the morning of 24 January, the raider’s seaplane sighted a freighter and, swooping low, carried away the freighter’s aerials with a specially designed grapnel; this is the first reported use of a raider’s plane in this manner, but the technique was used extensively later by the commanding officers of raiders Thor (Schiff 10) and Michel (Schiff 28). Rogge’s victim was Mandasor of the British India Steam Navigation Company, bound from England to India with military equipment. She was badly damaged and that same evening was sunk with time bombs. Three days later the Germans had the rare and most frustrating privilege of watching RMS Queen Mary pass across the horizon. The mighty “Queen” was bound from Bombay to Mombasa with a load of Indian troops. She never came within range and her speed, almost twice that of Schiff 16, undoubtedly would have enabled her to escape had she done so. Rogge’s next successful attack was on the British freighter Speybank, which he captured to the northwest of the Seychelles on 31 January. Kapitan Rogge kept this vessel in company and two days later, just to the southeast, he captured the Norwegian tanker Ketty Brovig, bound from Bahrein toLourengo Marques and laden with 4000 tons of diesel oil. The day before Rogge had sighted and had been sighted by the British Blue Funnel liner Troilus. The Troilus, forewarned by the RRRR warning that the Mandasor had sent out on an emergency aerial, never allowed the range to close and sent out a raider warning. That night the two ships broke off the contact by mutual consent.
Rogge had previously received orders from the Naval Operations Staff to remain in the western sector of the Indian Ocean, north of latitude 60 South until 15 February, so that a meeting with the pocket-battleship Admiral Scheer could be arranged. On 2 February, he reported the capture of Ketty Brovig and suggested that her cargo might be used to refuel Admiral Scheer at a meeting point west of Madagascar. The Naval Operations Staff ordered Rogge to wait with Kelly Brovig southeast of the Seychelles, until 12 February.
Rogge met Ketty Brovig and refueled his ship on 12 February, and the following day the three ships, Schiff 16, the tanker Kelly Brovig and the freighter Speybank, were joined by the German freighter Tannenfels from Kismayu, Italian Somaliland, with the prize crew of Durmilor.
Rogge received radio orders directly from Admiral Scheer to rendezvous southeast of Saya de Malha Bank on 14 February.. The pocket-battleship was met just after midday on 14 February and Rogge went aboard for a conference, but the weather was too bad for refueling or supply operations; in fact, the Mauritius radio broadcast a hurricane warning later that afternoon. The five ships, Admiral Scheer, Tannenfels, Schiff 16 and her prizes, Speybank and Ketty Brovig, headed northwards to get out of the bad weather area. That same night Tannenfels was detached as there was no longer need for a prison ship. At daybreak on 15 February, the Admiral Scheer, Schiff 16 and the Speybank rendezvoused, but the Kelly Brovig did not join, and the search organized to find her was unsuccessful until 16 February.
Kapitan Rogge had reported to Kapitan Krancke, the commanding officer of the Admiral Scheer, that the area to the north of Madagascar was a suitable zone of operations for the pocket-battleship. They decided that while the Admiral Scheer was operating in that area, Schiff 16 would move to the east of the Seychelles to intercept any ships which might be forced to take the passage to the east of Madagascar by the presence of the pocket-battleship in the Mozambique Channel. This type of strategic cooperation between a regular warship and an auxiliary cruiser had been used before by the Admiral Scheer; in this case, however, Schiff 16 was also to cover the refueling operations of the tenders and to guard any prizes the pocket- battleship might take.
Rogge was ordered to rendezvous with the German tanker Uckermark which had left Kismayu on 11 February, but the two ships never met. Rogge sighted no Allied ships, although early on the evening of 20 February, just after he had detached the Speybank, he did sight two Vichy French submarines, Pegase and Monge, which with their tender, Lot, were on their way from Diego Suarez to Dakar; but, since they had received permission for this trip from the German Armistice Commission, they were allowed to pass unmolested. The next day, 21 February, the Japanese freighter Africa Maru was sighted and also allowed to pass.
Early on the morning of 24 February, Rogge radioed the Admiral Scheer that he had not met Uckermark and that he was planning to rendezvous with the pocket- battleship on 25 February. This meeting never took place either as the two commanding officers had confused the rendezvous points. Although Krancke could not remain in the area any longer, he did detach his prize, the tanker British Advocate, with instructions to meet Schiff 16. Rogge moved southward and met British Advocate on 28 February. He supplied the tanker for her voyage in to the French coast and detached her the following day. That same day he met and refueled from the Ketty Brovig and then detached her with orders to wait to the east of Madagascar. This operation concluded the strategic and tactical cooperation between Schiff 16 and the Admiral Scheer. On 2 March he met Speybank to the south of the Chagos Archipelago, detached her to wait about 550 miles to the southeast of Reunion Island and then followed her south.
On 8 March the Naval Operations Staff broadcast instructions to all of the auxiliary cruisers and their tenders. There were several proposed meetings, but the only definite orders for Schiff 16 were to rendezvous with the raider Pinguin (Schiff 33) about 550 miles south of Madagascar and report the fuel reserves of each ship, after which Schiff 16 was to proceed to the South Atlantic. Before receiving these orders, Rogge had met Pinguin so he cruised back and forth in the area to the south and southeast of Madagascar for two weeks. The only ship sighted was a neutral, early on the morning of 10 March, moving southwestward with running lights set. Just before dawn on 14 March, he met Speybank again and the two ships stayed in company for seven days. Then he transferred his prisoners to Speybank and sent her into Bordeaux on 21 March.
His next operation was the refueling of the Italian submarine Perla, the sole survivor of the Italian Red Sea Submarine Flotilla, which he met about 200 miles south of Cape Dauphin, Madagascar, and remained in company from 28 March to 2 April when the submarine was detached. Perla was to operate at the southern end of the Mozambique Channel, while Schiff 16 proceeded to the South Atlantic. On the afternoon of 5 April, during the passage to the South Atlantic, Rogge stopped the French freighter Chenonceaux, but allowed her to proceed on her passage to Dakar. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope and moved into the waiting and rendezvous-area in mid-South Atlantic. On 13 April, he met the supply ship Dresden which had left Santos on 28 March. The two ships moved slowly eastward in company for the next three days, the raider receiving supplies from Dresden during the afternoon of 16 April before Rogge temporarily detached her. Rogge feared that he might be surprised while refueling as his radio interception staff had picked up a QQQQ (“sighted suspicious ship”) report from the Norwegian freighter Tai Yin. As no other German raider was near by, Rogge feared that a British patrol vessel in the vicinity had stopped Tai Yin and that the patrol vessel had been mistaken for a German ship.
There was a bright moon that night, and at about 0400, an unidentified ship was sighted at a range of almost ten miles. The raider closed this vessel observing that she had four masts and the single tall, thin funnel of a Bibby liner. The vessel, in sight closely resembled the Bibby liner Oxfordshire, which was known to be an armed merchant cruiser, and this resemblance combined with the radio intercept from the Tai Yin would fully have justified Rogge’s making off at top speed. Nevertheless, he decided to attack. His ship had made no sinkings for seventy-four days. Also, less than two weeks before, the German raider Thor (Schiff 10) had surprised and sunk a British armed merchant cruiser, H.M.S. Voltaire.
Rogge shadowed his unsuspecting victim for almost three hours before opening fire at 0625. The range had closed to just under three miles when the German ship attacked her enemy from the starboard quarter. The merchant ship made no effort to use her radio, but did attempt an escape before finally heaving to and signaling that she was the neutral Egyptian steamer Zam Zam bound from New York and Baltimore to Suez via Trinidad, Pernambuco and Capetown.
Now Rogge was faced with a difficult problem, for the Zam Zam, besides her crew of 110, had 217 passengers aboard, including 77 women and 38 children. Moreover, 137 of the passengers were Americans—missionaries bound for their posts in Africa, ambulance drivers of the American Field Service bound for service in the Western Desert with the British Eighth Army, and Time-Life correspondent Charles J. V. Murphey and his photographer David E. Scherman. The Zam Zam was sinking and Rogge had no choice but to take the passengers and crew aboard Schiff 16. Making the best of a bad situation the Germans stripped Zam Zam of her stores and expedited her sinking with scuttling charges late that afternoon.
Rogge called up Dresden, met her the next day, transferred all of the prisoners to Dresden and ordered her to stand by until he communicated with the Naval Operations Staff for instructions. Rogge returned and released Dresden on 26 April, with orders to stop a neutral ship and transfer her prisoners or to take them to Teneriffe or some other Spanish port. But these orders were later countermanded by the Naval Operations Staff and Dresden was ordered to run the Allied blockade. She finally reached Bordeaux and the Americans were returned to the United States via Lisbon.
In between meetings with Dresden, from 18 to 26 April, Kapitan Rogge had met the raider Kormoran (Schiff 41), the supply ship Alsterufer and the fleet tanker Nordmark. Alsterufer provided the two raiders with stores and additional men, while Nordmark refueled them. In addition Schiff 16 received two Heinkel 114 seaplanes and a number of torpedoes from Nordmark. On 24 April Kormoran parted company and Alsterufer and Nordmark were detached to stand by while Schiff 16 returned to release Dresden.
After detaching Dresden, Rogge rejoined and Alsterufer was ordered to stand by in the waiting area, until 25 May, while Nordmark was to proceed northward and rendezvous with U-106, which was carrying new codes for Schiff 16. Then the raider moved eastward and on 4 May met the supply ship Babitonga. As Schiff 16 had just been refueled and supplied, Rogge ordered Babitonga to stand by in the waiting area until 3 June.
Rogge changed his ship’s disguise, as within a few days the prisoners from Zam Zam would be released and would report to the world that a German raider was disguised as the Norwegian motor ship Tamesis. Therefore, on 30 April, Schiff 16 adopted the identity of the Dutch motor ship Brastagi.
On 7 May Rogge stopped the Vichy French freighter Lieutenant De La Tour, but allowed her to proceed after he had searched her. He continued to move eastward and about 200 miles off Cape Frio, Portuguese West Africa, just after midnight on 14 May, attacked and sank the British freighter Rabaul, bound from England to Capetown with a load of coal.
Since Rabaul had been unable to send out a raider warning, Rogge continued to operate on the Freetown-Capetown route. Here his ship’s luck almost ran out, for shortly after midnight of 17 May the British battleship H.M.S. Nelson and the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Eagle, which were conducting an anti-raider sweep along the Capetown-Free- town shipping route, were sighted. It was a moonless night and the weather was unsettled, so he was able to make off without being seen.
Rogge moved southward, and during the afternoon of 21 May, his seaplane sighted a freighter. He intercepted her and she proved to be the Greek freighter M. E. Kttlikundis under charter to the Swiss Government. She was sailing from Madras to Lisbon and was allowed to proceed after being searched and warned not to report the meeting or to use her radio. Two nights later Rogge saw a lighted ship, the American tanker Charles E. Cramp, and avoided her. During the afternoon of 24 May, the seaplane sighted the British freighter Trafalgar which Rogge sank late that night after shadowing her for several hours and before she could send out any raider warning.
From 25 May to 7 June, Rogge communicated by radio with Babitonga and arranged later meetings with the tankers Egerland and Esso Hamburg, two of the ships originally intended as tenders for the battleship Bismarck; however, both tankers were intercepted by the British. In addition, the substitute tanker Lotheringen was sunk and finally the Babitonga herself was intercepted.
About 250 miles northwest of Ascension Island, on 17 June, Rogge shelled and sank Tottenham, a new British freighter, bound from England to Alexandria with military equipment. After this attack, Kapitan Rogge moved southwestward toward South America and operated along the Freetown—La Plata shipping route. Here, just before dawn on 22 June, when the raider was about 300 miles off Recife, he attacked and sank the British freighter Balzac. The freighter, which was bound from Rangoon to Liverpool, sent out an RRRR signal, but was shelled into submission and sunk with scuttling charges.
Rogge had been informed by the Naval Operations staff that a meeting with the Orion (Schiff 36) would be arranged early in June. On 23 June, Orion reported that she would be at the meeting point just south of Tristan da Cunha, .on 1 July. Because of the loss of the tankers Egerland, Esso Hamburg and Lotheringen, Schiff 16 would have to divide her fuel supply with Orion. The future operational plans for the two raiders were sent out by the Naval Operations Staff on 30 June. The orders were: 1) One of the raiders in the South Atlantic would have to move to another area—Schiff 16 would be best since she had more fuel; 2) The raider that shifted her operational area would either round the Cape of Good Hope and operate off Western Australia, or, 3) round Cape Horn and after meeting the supply ship Anneliese Essberger, operate in the South Pacific until November. This ship would then return to the South Atlantic and serve as a supply ship for the U-boats which would then be operating in that area. After refueling the U-boats, the raider would return to the French coast at the end of 1941.
Rogge met Orion on 1 July and they remained in company for five days. Arranging the two ship’s respective operating areas with Kapitan zur See Kurt Weyher, commander of Orion, Schiff 16 refueled Orion and then they parted company. However, these arrangements were countermanded by the Naval Operations Staff on 10 July. Schiff 16 was to shift her operating area to the Indian Ocean and to remain south of latitude 25 South so as to leave the northern Indian Ocean free for the operations of Kormoran (Schiff 41).
Rogge rounded the Cape of Good Hope and moved almost directly across the southern part of the Indian Ocean without sighting any ships although he sent his seaplane on daily searches. He steered well to the south of Australia and New Zealand and entered the Pacific on 14 August, then moved northward to operate on the New Zealand- Panama route in the vicinity of the Tonga Islands. Just after daybreak on 10 September, two days after his arrival in his assigned operating area, he captured the Norwegian motor ship Silvaplana, bound Batavia to New York with a valuable cargo of spices and quinine bark. He moved northeastward, after ordering Silvaplana to wait in the area to the south of the Marquesas Islands until 14 September.
The Naval Operations Staff had arranged a meeting for Schiff 16 and the supply ship Munsterland and possibly the raider Komet (Schiff 45) during the later part of September. Komet had been operating off the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal and was moving westward in company with her prize, the Dutch freighter Kota Nopan.
Rogge, cruising back and forth across the New Zealand-Panama route, moved steadily eastward in order to reach the assigned rendezvous with the Munsterland and Komet. He detached the Silvaplana on 18 September, with orders to stand by, while he continued eastward. On the morning of 21 September, he met Komet and her prize Kota Nopan and on the following day met the Munsterland. Rogge took all of the Munsterland's stores and fuel for Schiff 16 as the Komet had refueled from the supply ship Anneliese Essberger shortly before. The next day Rogge transferred his prisoners to the Munsterland and Kota Nopan and then parted company with Komet and her prize. They were to proceed to the South Atlantic while he moved southward with Munsterland to meet Silvaplana. On 28 September Silvaplana was refueled and supplied by Munsterland and on the following day he sent them to Bordeaux and Japan respectively.
Having completed his scheduled refueling and supplying operations in the Pacific, Rogge moved southeastward toward Cape Horn. Before he rounded the Cape on 27 October, the Naval Operations Staff asked him if he could refuel the U-68 at a meeting point just to the west of St. Helena between 12 and. 15 November. He answered that he would reach the meeting point by 13 November.
Passing Cape Horn, he moved northward into the center of the South Atlantic, passing well to the south and east of the Falkland Islands and met the U-68 on 13 November and then parted company two days later. On 17 November Kapitan Rogge changed the identity of Schiff 16 to that of the Dutch motor ship Polyphemus and after assuming this new disguise, continued northward to meet the U-126 about 350 miles northwest of Ascension Island. At dawn on 22 November, the U-126 was sighted and Rogge hove to in order to start refueling her.
At 0815 Rogge sighted a ship, and three minutes later she was definitely identified as an English heavy cruiser of the “County” class. Schif 16 turned a complete circle to starboard and made off to the southeast. The enemy opened fire at 0830, but Rogge held fire, hoping either to use his disguise as the Dutch Polyphemus or to draw the British cruiser into a position where the U-126 could torpedo her. At 0840 he sent out an RRRR signal: “RRR RRR de Polyphemus—4 20 South, 18 35 West—0940 GMT.” The English cruiser checked her fire for almost an hour, but at 0930 she opened fire again. Schiff 16 was hit repeatedly and was set on fire aft. At 0958 Rogge gave the order to abandon ship and the crew went over the side. The boats lay by, and the crew gave three cheers for the Atlantis as she blew up and sank at 1015.
Perhaps a clearer picture of the sinking of Schiff 16, the Atlantis, is given in a British report of the action.
On 22 November the heavy cruiser H.M.S. Devonshire (Captain R. D. Oliver, D.S.C., R.N.), patroling the Cape Verde-Capetown shipping route, was a little over 350 miles northwest of Ascension Island. At daybreak the cruiser flew off her seaplane for a routine anti-submarine and surface search ahead. The plane returned a little after 0700 and reported an unidentified merchant vessel about 40 miles away. The Devonshire closed this position at 25 knots and at about 0800 sighted masts. Twenty minutes later the cruiser flew off her other seaplane and closed to between 7 and 11 miles range. Schiff 16, for this unidentified merchant vessel was the German raider, turned a complete circle to starboard and made off to the southeast. At 0840, in order to provoke a return fire, the Devonshire fired two salvoes, spread to the right and left. Schif 16 stopped and sent out the radio signal, “RRR RRR de Polyphemus—4 20 South, 18 35 West—0940 GMT.”
Suspicion was aroused by the fact that the RRR letters were sent out in groups of three instead of four; nevertheless, the Devonshire signaled to Senior Officer South Atlantic at 0900, asking the whereabouts of the Polyphemus. At about 0930 the cruiser signaled her plane which was hovering over Schiff 16, asking the type of stern the “merchant” vessel had. “Like Tamesis,” the plane replied—the Tamesis was the alias that Schif 16 had used when she sank the Zam Zam. A couple of minutes later the answer came from the Senior Officer South Atlantic—“No, Repetition No!”
The Devonshire immediately opened at a range of 10 miles and scored. Schiff 16 made smoke, but made no attempt to return fire. Within ten minutes the Devonshire had fired thirty salvoes, the target was obscured by smoke, and the cruiser turned eastward to clear the line of vision. The cruiser’s plane reported that Schiff 16 was still making 15 knots and the Devonshire opened fire again. Captain Oliver felt that the enemy was attempting to draw him southeastward, possibly into a submarine trap, so he checked direction. Schiff 16 was on fire and down by the stern. Just after 1000, there was an explosion, ten minutes later another, and at 1016, Schiff 16, the Atlantis, sank.
Half an hour later-Devonshire picked up her plane, which reported that there was a U-boat present. The cruiser made off, as any attempt to pick up survivors would have been suicidal.
The submarine, the U-126, which Schiff 16 had been refueling, took care of the survivors. Rogge had the U-boat tow the sunken raider’s boats for two days, after which they were picked up by the submarine supply ship Python, which was operating off St. Helena. The Python, however, was intercepted and sunk by H.M.S. Dorsetshire on 1 December, to the south of St. Helena. The four hundred survivors—only seven men were lost in the sinking of Schiff 16 and none in the sinking of Python—were again picked up by the accompanying U-boats, U-68, U-124 and U-A. Each took aboard fifty men and carried the rest on deck in life rafts, so that in case of danger the submarine could submerge and let the life rafts float free. In this manner all the survivors reached Bordeaux between 25 December and 3 January 1942.
Schiff 16, the Atlantis, under the command of Kapitan zur See Bernhard Rogge, had cruised in enemy waters for almost twenty- one months. She had circumnavigated the globe and operated in every ocean. Rogge had sunk 16 ships of 106,227 tons and captured 6 more of 38,137 tons, a total of 22 ships of 144,364 gross tons. Truly a modern Sir Francis Drake in a modern Golden Hind, he must be credited with conducting a voyage second to very few in the long dramatic history of the sea.