The Sea Devil

Imagine the scion of a noble military family, with such a history that the French dedicated the ‘Marseillaise’ to one of them.  Maybe also imagine a bit of a wild child, who saw a cruise ship menu and ran off to sea at age 13… on a Russian tramp schooner. (You know THAT was a culinary disappointment!) Swearing he would not return home until he was an officer, he sailed ‘before the mast’, and worked odd jobs as a boxer, traveling fakir assistant, and Salvation Army worker. According to his autobiography, years later he swam out and rescued a drowning  man in Hamburg harbor in freezing weather. And a few days later did it again. When the Kaiser heard of his exploits – and his oath – he sponsored the young man into the officer’s school (and basically said “I’ll get you in there, but you have to earn it!”.)

Meet Felix von Luckner, one of the most unusual and dashing figures ever to sail the seven seas. A wee tiny fella two full meters tall, he traveled the world on sailing ships, which leads to his eventual claim to fame. As an officer in the German Navy in WWI, he was at the Battle of Jutland, one of the last great traditional old-style naval battles. You line your ships up in a line, we line ours up in a line, both steam past each other with guns blazing, and may the best navy win. (Neither did in this case, although both German and British navies suffered casualties, and both claimed victory.)

But the German high naval command also knew there was value in sneakiness…raiders! What the Brits called Q-ships – ships designed to look like freighters, but armed. Approach an enemy ship flying false colors, raise your true colors, fire as many rounds as needed, and down to Davey Jones’ Locker the enemy goes. Raiders were an important naval asset, as just knowing one was out there disrupted shipping schedules, caused ships to reroute to less dangerous waters, raised insurance rates, and of course there was the danger of actually being sunk. One of the most famous was the German ‘Moewe’ (Moth) which was highly successful and confounded efforts to be stopped. In one case, knowing the Moewe could alter her appearance with things like phony funnels, a British Navy ship watched her sail into a fog bank with one funnel, and seemingly sail out with two funnels minutes later. No fools they, the Brits then fired on the double funneled… British freighter, while the Moewe sailed away.

The Germans had interned a British three masted schooner, the Pass of Balmaha, and just knew she might make an interesting raider. But in the age of iron-clad dreadnaughts, who could effectively captain such a ship?  Probably the only serving German officer who had sailed before the mast. The ship was refitted with POW quarters belowdecks, armed, and set out in hopes the first navy ship who spotted her wouldn’t send her to the bottom. Hardly. He and the renamed ‘Seeadler’ (Sea Eagle) sank over 20 ships, captured hundreds of prisoners…and only caused one death.

Eventually the Seeadler was wrecked , according to von Luckner, by a freak wave at an island called Mopelia. Taking a 10 meter longboat and a few crew-members, he intended to somehow capture another sailing ship and go raiding some more. Unfortunately, he ran into the police on a Fiji island and was captured.

After imprisonment on an island off New Zealand, von Luckner escaped – and tried to yet again go raiding, but was captured at Curtis Island yet again, and spent the rest of the war in POW camps. You might get the idea that he did not give up easily? That must have contributed to his ‘Seeteufel’ (Sea Devil) nickname.

As you can see above, he was highly decorated for his services. The American author, Lowell Thomas, claims he was given an award so high that he was regarded as  literally above the law. (Thomas said only one other German achieved that – I wonder if it was Paul von Lettow-Voorbeck, who might get a column someday.)

Von Luckner was sidelined by age and politics in WWII – he was not a Nazi and they did not like him. He did, however, achieve brief notoriety toward the end of the war – the Americans were advancing on Halle (up north near Hannover.)  Knowing the usual response to Nazi resistance by the Americans  was flattening the city, von Luckner negotiated a cease-fire which allowed the German troops to withdraw and save the historic city.

Despite his somewhat turbulent younger years, Felix von Luckner lived until 1968 and died at the age of 87.

See:

“Count von Luckner, The Sea Devil” by Lowell Thomas, Doubleday, Doran  &Company, 1928

“The Sea Devil’s Fo’c’sle” by Lowell Thomas, Doubleday, Doran  &Company, 1929

“Out of An Old Sea Chest”  by Felix Count von Luckner, translated b Edward Fitzgerals, Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1955 (trans. 1958)

“Count von Luckner, Knight of the Sea” by Edwin P. Hoyt, David McKay & Company Inc., 1968

I promised Dave Hardin I would write a coupla columns on some of the folks I admired. For example Von Luckner, Von Lettow-Voorbeck, Frederick Selous…been a bit tied up with everything else so I decided for my 1000th column I would at least get one of ’em in.

Category: None, We Remember, WWI