One night in 1939, while we were anchored in Hewett Bay, Chile, during a howling southwest gale, Albert Pagels told me his story of how he had hidden the German light cruiser Dresden there, 23 years earlier. We had taken Pagels on as a pilot for a yachting cruise through Fuegan waterways. Most of the channels of Tierra del Fuego were poorly charted, with many areas still marked unexplored on the latest Chilean charts, and Pagels in 1939 was, and he still is, an expert navigator and pilot in that area.
Long before dawn of a wild December morning in 1914, two men had departed furtively in an open motorboat from Punta Arenas, then the southernmost town in the world, strategically situated on the Straits of Magellan, less than 200 miles north of grim Cape Horn, home of gales and Antarctic-brewed storms. Embarked on one of the most tragic and futile missions in the long annals of sea warfare, they headed their one-cylinder motorboat into the teeth of a southeast gale and laid their course toward lonely and desolate Cockburn Channel.
Both men were Germans and their task was to intercept, if possible, the powerful cruiser squadron of Admiral Graf von Spee. The German squadron had left Tsingtao on the Chinese coast at the outbreak of World War I and, after cruising eastward across the Pacific, on 1 November had destroyed the British squadron of Admiral Cradock off Chile.
The victorious German squadron then leisurely cruised around the tip of South America to destroy the radio station at Port Stanley in the Falklands. By occupying the British naval base, von Spee might have been able to sweep the southern seas of British shipping. Command of the Falklands possibly would have cut Britain’s vital sea-lanes to New Zealand and Australia.
In London, the British Admiralty was badly worried. The whole Grand Fleet was poised and ready for the expected breakout of the German High Seas Fleet. Over strong protests, Lord “Jackie” Fisher ordered two new battle cruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, to be dispatched to the Falklands within six hours of the news of Coronel. It actually took the two ships nine days to get ready for the long 7,000-mile dash to the Antipodes.
They sailed under sealed orders, avoiding all shipping lanes, islands, and headlands.
Only two stops were made for coal; one at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, the other at Abrolhos Rocks. Alert German Naval Intelligence, learning of their presence in the South Atlantic, flashed a warning to the Kaiser’s Naval Attaché at Montevideo. He in turn warned the German consul at Punta Arenas to pass the bad news to von Spee’s squadron. The consul thereupon hurried to the home of Albert Pagels, otter-hunter and a German naval reservist, because he alone in the area knew the stormy and uncharted waters of Tierra del Fuego.
Pagels, earlier a boatswain’s mate in the Imperial German Navy, was an ardent German patriot. At first he objected to the mission because of a badly injured hand and the dangerous futility of trying to intercept von Spee’s squadron which would probably round the Horn, rather than thread through the Straits of Magellan. But, after the German consul pointed out that five German warships and the lives of 6,000 compatriots were at stake, Pagels reluctantly accepted the dangerous and almost hopeless mission. He rounded up a trustworthy companion, named Schindlich. Although their little open motorboat—known by the local aborigines as “Choogie Choogie”—capsized three times in wild seas, they reached Cockburn Channel under terrifying conditions of sea and weather after a 36-hour ordeal.
Just as they neared Cockburn Channel, a long, gray, three-funnelled cruiser came racing in from the sea. Fog, driving sleet, and gale-lashed spume blotted out the ship most of the time. Officers on her bridge anxiously scanned every channel and headland with their binoculars, but seemingly did not notice the tiny motorboat and its two frantically waving occupants. If they did, they probably assumed that these were merely two Chilean fishermen trying to beg supplies and tobacco.
The fast cruiser was in fact SMS Dresden, sole German survivor of the one-sided Battle of the Falklands, fought on 8 December. The fate that Pagels and Schindlich were trying to avert had already overwhelmed Graf von Spee and his 6,000 German bluejackets. As Dresden disappeared behind a solid curtain of murk, sleet, and gale-driven mists, Pagels sank wearily to his seat and groaned, “Ach du Lieber Gott! They never saw us!” He had a chilling premonition that some terrible disaster already had happened.
But they still had one last hope. Not far away in a lonely and wild channel lay the well-hidden German collier, Amasis. They knew that she was radio-equipped, Perhaps it was still not too late to warn von Spee away from the deadly trap of the Falklands. Therefore they powered their boat through night and storm and reached Amasis the next day.
Amasis’s captain had heard nothing from von Spee’s ships. If Dresden heard Amasis’s secret radio call signals, she was probably afraid to disclose her position by answering. Therefore, Pagels decided to return to Punta Arenas at once in hopes that the consul had received some word since he had left on his futile mission.
Eighty hours after leaving on their abortive trip, Pagels and Schindlich returned to Punta Arenas and learned of the catastrophe that had sent von Spee’s squadron to the bottom. The British coal-carrying bark, Dunmuir, had sealed the doom of the German Asiatic Squadron.
Proceeding around Cape Horn on 2 December 1914, von Spee had sighted Dunmuir, laden with 2,500 tons of coal. Although his squadron did not need fuel to reach Port Stanley, where there was plenty of coal, von Spee spent three precious days shifting the Dunmuir's cargo to his own bunkers. As a result, instead of arriving at the Falklands two days ahead of the British battle cruisers and seizing the base from token opposition, he arrived one day too late. And when he did, he made the mistake of failing to scout the area first, as well as of arriving too early in the day.
Inflexible and Invincible were at anchor taking on coal when lookouts reported strange warships to the southward. Von Spee’s shock and surprise can readily be understood when he identified the telltale tripod masts of the new, powerful battle cruisers as they stood out to sea under fluttering battle pennants to engage. His ships were too slow to run away and so hopelessly outmatched in firepower that he knew that his squadron was doomed.
The running battle of the Falklands is now history. In it, von Spee gallantly sacrificed his own flagship, Scharnhorst, in a desperate maneuver to let some of his faster cruisers escape. The German admiral and every man on his flagship perished as the heavily damaged and burning Scharnhorst sank. In all, the Germans lost four cruisers and two colliers. Taking advantage of a fog bank and her superior speed, Dresden managed to escape, but she was the only one.
Stopping at Punta Arenas during December 12–13 to pick up coal, Dresden then fled to a secret sanctuary in uncharted and lonely Hewett Bay, arriving there on 14 December. Six hours after she had sailed, the British cruiser Bristol arrived at Punta Arenas in hot pursuit.
As soon as Bristol left, Pagels cranked up his motorboat and left for Hewett Bay to warn Captain Luedecke of Bristol's arrival. Here he found the cruiser taking on water from a nearby glacier cascade and sailors cutting the dank, water-soaked trees for use as auxiliary fuel. During the following twelve days, Pagels made two trips to Punta Arenas with dispatches and to obtain lubricating oil for Dresden's engines.
During his absence, two otter hunters in a small yawl visited the cruiser. They were hospitably received by the Germans and treated to beer and delicacies. At the time, Dresden's officers attached no significance to this visit, not realizing that British intelligence agents were offering huge sums as reward to anyone with information on the fugitive.
When Pagels returned and learned of their visit, he realized that the well-hidden Dresden's position by this time had already been conveyed to the searching British. The bedraggled otter hunters were a Russian and a Frenchman, and they undoubtedly had lost no time in hurrying to Punta Arenas to report their find.
Lookouts and shore parties immediately were recalled, and on 25 December Dresden broke out her anchor to flee once more. With Pagels as pilot, the hunted cruiser fled down lonely and majestic Barbara and Gonzales Channels. Twisting and turning through narrow fjord-like areas, the cruiser worked her way through a maze of waterways to utterly isolated and uncharted Christmas Bay.
A British squadron under Admiral Stoddart had been ordered to make a search for the German ship. Only close study of the charts of this wild and utterly desolate region just north of Cape Horn can give one an inkling of the magnitude of such a task. The entire region is one of gloomy Wagnerian grandeur when it is not blotted out by the most execrable weather in the whole world. Rain, sleet, snow, hail, gales, and driving mist are seldom absent for more than a few hours. Despite the weather, nowhere else on earth can one find scenery of such stark and savage beauty. Magnificent and lonely glaciers are backed by majestic snow-capped mountains. Deep, somber fjords cut up the whole region into an endless maze of winding waterways. Even the names of the charts bespeak the bleak inhospitality of Tierra del Fuego—Famine Reach, Useless Bay, Anxious Point, Mount Misery, Desolation Island, East and West Furies, and Last Hope Bay.
Searching British ships gingerly threaded their way through channels never before traversed by vessels of their size. The vast and almost limitless reaches of Skyring and Otway waters were diligently combed. Leaks of supposedly “reliable and confidential” origin planted by German agents sent the British on many fruitless sorties and one of these sent the cruiser Bristol all the way to Last Hope Bay, a region almost completely uncharted and unknown, where she ran aground and damaged her rudder, taking her out of the search. “Admiral Stoddart after weeks of fruitless searching was entirely baffled. The Dresden had covered her tracks apparently with complete success,” Sir Julian Corbett later acknowledged in the official British history.
Pagels made ten successful round trips to Punta Arenas and back, aided by foul weather, which threw his shadowers off his track. He was amused to note dozens of new “prospectors” in the streets of Punta Arenas, packing up gear for mysterious trips to distant parts of Tierra del Fuego. They looked suspiciously like British intelligence officers. Pagels told this author that British agents offered him $100,000 and a large tract of fine farmland in the Falklands if he would betray Dresden's position. He related proudly, throwing his shoulders back, that he had replied, “Go back and tell your British king so much money he has not got he can buy me.” Bribes failing, threats were made against his life. As a result, at night he slept with a rifle at his side and by day stayed close to Chilean police.
The well-hidden Dresden, however, again was running short of fuel. In order to be instantly ready to fight or flee, it was necessary to maintain a full head of steam all the time. The 15,000-ton collier, Sierra Cordoba, was ordered to run the British naval gauntlet to coal the cruiser. This was no easy task, since British warships guarded both the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Straits of Magellan. However, Sierra Cordoba evaded them by crossing the dreaded Orange Banks on a high tide, a feat never before or since accomplished by a vessel of similar draft.
Nevertheless, three British cruisers at Sholl Bay still lay between the two German ships. Cordoba's pilot lost his nerve and demanded to be returned to Punta Arenas; Pagels thereupon hurried to Dresden to report this development. Her bunkers had been swept clean even of coal dust and, of course, without fuel she was doomed. Captain Luedecke immediately ordered Pagels to relieve the fainthearted pilot and to bring the big collier to Christmas Bay.
After waiting for new code books and the latest information on the searching British vessels, Pagels selected a dark and stormy night to set out on his desperate mission. The nerves of everyone aboard Cordoba tautened as the big ship approached Sholl Bay in a howling gale and snowstorm that had reduced visibility to almost zero. At full speed the deep-laden collier sailed past the anchored British cruisers, then only three miles distant. The many years of navigational experience in these uncharted channels stood Pagels in good stead as he piloted Cordoba through sixty miles of tortuous passage. A few hours after dawn on 19 January 1915, the exhausted Pagels anchored Sierra Cordoba near Dresden.
Cordoba's master then decided to shift his berth a few hundred yards. Pagels, who had fallen asleep, was awakened by the grinding crash of steel plates on granite rocks. In broad daylight the collier’s captain had impaled his ship on a rock within sight of the cruiser. Pagels quickly beached the ship before it could sink in deep water.
After coaling Dresden, Pagels had a brilliant idea. On the first night when the British would have no patrols out, he would run the warship past the mouth of Sholl Bay and fire torpedoes at the English, permitting the hunted to become the hunter for a change. Captain Luedecke disapproved the idea because it would have been a violation of Chilean neutrality. Little did he foresee that the British would not be punctilious about such matters when they later caught him at anchor in the neutral harbor of Juan Fernandez off the coast of Chile.
Pagels continued to make periodic trips to Punta Arenas with dispatches, to obtain supplies, and to see his family. He also picked up news that the British arc of search was widening each week and getting dangerously close to Christmas Bay. By 4 February 1915, it once more became imperative to move the hunted Dresden. This time Pagels selected unexplored Wakefield Channel in the remote Breaker Coast, an anchorage that had three escape outlets to the open Pacific.
Contrary to rumors and yarns extant at that time, the cruiser never sent down her top hamper nor was she covered over with tree branches. Disguise was unnecessary. The hiding place was in completely uncharted waters and so remote that Pagels felt sure the British would never find her. Actually, Glasgow reached a point within twelve miles of Dresden before turning back. As Sir Julian Corbett explained in his history, “Admiral Stoddart was unwilling to venture further into these wild and uncharted waters.”
Since the German Admiralty wanted Dresden brought back to Germany, they ordered Captain Luedecke to bring the hunted cruiser to a secret rendezvous off the Lavandeira Reefs in the South Atlantic, where she might be refueled for the long voyage home. But the rendezvous was 5,000 miles away and her maximum steaming range was only 3,000. Luedecke demurred and asked for permission to try the Pacific, which was granted. German secret agents in South America and as far away as Hawaii and California intrigued and pulled wires to get coal to the fugitive cruiser. The whole world became fascinated by the mystery of what had happened to the vanished survivor of the Battle of the Falklands.
Captain Luedecke hoped that the vast Pacific with its numerous shipping lanes would mean that the British would have to disperse their questing warships over a far greater area than the narrow South Atlantic. He also reasoned that colliers would be easier to intercept and destroy before his presence became known in the Pacific. He had been a hunted fugitive since the catastrophe of the Falklands and perhaps felt that fighting rather than fleeing was his main duty.
On 14 February, Pagels said farewell to Captain Luedecke and his officers and wished them every success. The otter hunter then returned to Punta Arenas, well satisfied with having outwitted the British search. Eternally short of coal and with boilers nearly burned out, Luedecke changed his mind and decided to run for Talcahuano and there intern his ship. His wireless operators had also intercepted traffic between British cruisers working down the Chilean coast towards the Straits of Magellan. There were also a Japanese cruiser and more British warships working southward from the Galapagos to head him off in case he made for Easter Island. This left him only Juan Fernandez as the nearest neutral port offering internment sanctuary.
British intelligence had ferreted out a lead that Dresden might rendezvous with a German collier about 300 miles due west of Coronel. HMS Kent was dispatched to sweep the area. Kent later claimed that she sighted Dresden on the morning of 7 March at a distance of twelve miles. Despite a sustained speed of 21½ knots the best Kent could do by nightfall was to close the gap to eight miles. The official British account simply states, “The Dresden disappeared.” With badly burned out boilers, low grade coal, and a foul bottom, it seems doubtful that Dresden could have turned up much over twenty knots herself.
As Kent had less than 300 tons of coal left, Captain Allen could do little more than radio his chance sighting of Dresden to other British cruisers and then return to Coronel for bunkers. There is no record that Dresden saw Kent. The German cruiser dropped anchor in Mas-a-Tierra or Juan Fernandez, the island made famous by Alexander Selkirk, on the morning of the 9th. There was no radio on Juan Fernandez in those days, so Luedecke probably felt his long-hunted ship would be reasonably safe for a few days until he could contact a German collier and return to sea.
A Spanish fisherman was ready to leave for Valparaiso with a load of crawfish and gratefully accepted a bribe to carry secret dispatches to the German consul at Valparaiso. With equal alacrity he then double-crossed the Germans and extorted an even larger bribe from the British for the documents he had brought from Dresden. A few days later, on 14 March, the German lookouts reported two British heavy cruisers, HMS Kent and HMS Glasgow, converging on the port. All hope of escape was cut off. Since he was anchored in neutral waters, Captain Luedecke refused to surrender his ship and also declined an invitation to “step outside.”
Without further ado, Glasgow opened fire at short range, apparently a flagrant violation of neutrality. Luedecke thereupon hoisted a white flag and asked for an armistice. Twenty of his bluejackets had been killed and a number of others badly wounded by the first British salvo. But Captain Luce of Glasgow signalled back that his orders were to destroy Dresden wherever he found her.
Since both fighting and running away were impossible, Luedecke ordered the Kingston valves opened to scuttle his ship and had a heavy time bomb placed in the magazine, providing personnel time to abandon ship with their wounded and dead. At 11:15 a.m. the lone German survivor of the Battle of the Falklands blew up with a tremendous roar. As she sank in the deep waters of Cumberland Bay, the German bluejackets raised three cheers for their Kaiser and Fatherland, in accordance with their captain’s request. The dead rest in a small cemetery near the town which the author visited in 1939.
Seven and one-half months after the beginning of the war, the Imperial German naval ensign had been swept from the seas all over the world. Britannia once more ruled the waves. Deadly U-boats were to take up the battle and from time to time armed commerce raiders were to break the blockade and operate on the high seas for brief periods, but the long-sought Dresden was the last warship of the Kaiser’s navy to hold the sea until the brief sortie of the entire German High Seas fleet and the subsequent Battle of Jutland.
The successful hiding of Dresden in the far reaches of Tierra del Fuego for over two months will always remain one of the epics of the sea. Albert Pagels, now eighty years old, is “still a familiar sight in the streets down here,” according to a letter the author recently received from the British consul at Punta Arenas. He is probably the only man in history who successfully hid a cruiser.
Mr. Baarslag, a writer-researcher, is consultant to various congressional committees, including the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Between World Wars he spent twenty years at sea. He has produced four books and numerous monographs, articles, and pamphlets on a variety of subjects, including naval mutinies, communications, and the Coast Guard. Mr. Bearslag was commissioned in the Naval Reserve in 1936 and served in naval intelligence in World War II.