Imperial Germany:
SMS Seeadler, a German commerce raider in the First World War and one of (if not the last) warfighting sailing ship in history. Her exploits in the pacific led to her captain being given the epithet 'the Sea Devil' and her crew 'the Kaiser's Pirates'. Painting by Christopher Rave.
SMS Seeadler (
Ger:
sea eagle) was a three-master
steel-hulled sailing ship. She was one of the last fighting sailing ships to be used in war when she served as a
merchant raider with
Imperial Germany in
World War I. Built as the British-flagged
Pass of Balmaha, she was captured by the German submarine
SM U-36, and in 1916 converted to a commerce raider. As
Seeadler she had a successful raiding career, capturing and sinking 15 ships in 225 days until she was wrecked, in September 1917, in French Polynesia.
By 1916 the Allies had blockaded German warships in the
North Sea, and any
commerce raiders that succeeded in breaking out lacked foreign or colonial bases for resupply of
coal. This gave rise to the idea of equipping a sailing ship instead, since it would not require coaling.
Seeadler was equipped with an auxiliary engine, hidden lounges, accommodation for additional crew and prisoners, two hidden
105 mm guns that could emerge from the deck, two hidden heavy
machine guns, a pair of torpedo tubes for anti-cruiser purposes, and rifles for boarding parties. These weapons were rarely fired (the torpedo tubes never), and many of the 15 ships encountered by
Seeadler were sunk with only one single accidental casualty on either side during the entire journey.
On 21 December 1916, she sailed under the command of
Kapitänleutnant Felix von Luckner. The ship was disguised as a
Norwegian wood carrier and succeeded in crossing the British blockading line despite being boarded for an inspection. The crew had been handpicked partly for their ability to speak
Norwegian. Over the next 225 days, she captured 15 ships in the
Atlantic and
Pacific and led the British and US Navies on a merry chase.
Her journey ended wrecked on a
reef at the island of
Mopelia 450 kilometres (280 mi) from
Tahiti in the
Society Islands, part of
French Polynesia. Luckner and some crew sailed for
Fiji, where they were captured and imprisoned. The French
schooner Lutece, of 126 tons, was captured by the remaining crew on 5 September 1917. They sailed to
Easter Island as
Fortuna, arriving on 4 October and running aground there, after which they were interned by the
Chilean authorities.
