GERMAN RAIDER ATLANTIS

Recognizing at the outset of WWII that the Kriegsmarine had not the strength to match the Royal Navy’s warfleet, Hilter’s maritime strategy concentrated on guerre de course, interrupting the flow of merchant ships carrying the necessities of life to the island nation.  His U-boats performed such yeoman service in this regard that they overshadowed the efforts of Germany’s auxiliary cruisers and surface raiders.  These latter were converted freighters that mounted concealed heavy guns behind an innocent outward appearance.  One of the most successful was ATLANTIS (Schiff #16), who escaped to sea through the British blockade in March 1940.

This morning found ATLANTIS cruising the eastern Indian Ocean, deceptively rigged and painted as a Norwegian freighter.  At dawn, she found herself on a converging course with the British Blue Funnel Lines freighter Automedon, who was outbound from Liverpool to Far Eastern ports.  By this time in the war, British merchant captains had become wary of any ship that approached on the high seas, and Automedon immediately altered course.  At this, ATLANTIS charged and unmasked her guns.  The freighter’s panicked radio calls were quickly squelched with a barrage of 6″ shells to her bridge and radio shack.  Heavily outgunned, Automedon hove to and awaited the German boarding party.

Kapitänleutnant (equivalent to LT) Ulrich Mohr stepped aboard the freighter to find the deck running with blood.  ATLANTIS’ first shells had killed Automedon’s master and most of her officers.  Her cargo proved worth the effort as she was carrying an assortment of crated airplanes, autos, uniforms, medicines, supplies, cigarettes, and 550 cases of whiskey.  More importantly, the sudden demise of her officers had prevented the destruction of Automedon’s papers.  The Germans struck gold.  Automedon’s safe yielded invaluable Admiralty sailing instructions and copies of three Merchant Naval Codes, fleet cipher tables, top secret high-level correspondence, and the plans for the British defense of Singapore!  After commandeering her whiskey, cigarettes, and fresh vegetables, Automedon was scuttled.

CAPT Bernhard Rogge dispatched the captured documents with his most trusted officer to Axis ally Japan on the captured tanker Ole Jacob.  Korvettenkapitän (LCDR) Paul Kamenz arrived in Kobe on December 6^th, and in Tokyo, shared the documents with Tojo’s planners.  Rather than risk a seaborne transit through the British blockade, he journeyed to Vladivostok, then overland through Moscow on the Trans-Siberian railway.  In Berlin, his captured documents were as well received as Rogge anticipated.

Follow the further story of ATLANTIS on 22 NOV

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Frank, Wolfgang and Bernhard Rogge.  The German Raider Atlantis.  New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1956, pp. 84-88.

Hoyt, Edwin P.  Raider 16.  New York, NY: World Publishing, 1970, pp. 129-39.

Matthews, Alan.  “S.S. Automedon:  The Ship that Doomed a Colony.”  AT: http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/automedon.html, retrieved 22 November 2009.

Rusbidger, James.  “The Sinking of the ‘Automedon’ and the Capture of the ‘Nankin:’  New Light on Two Intelligence Disasters in World War II.”  Encounter magazine, May 1985, AT: http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/SUBM/SUBM.003.0034.pdf, retrieved 22 November 2009.

Slavick, Joseph P.  The Cruise of the German Raider Atlantis.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2003.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The British have still not come to grips with this embarrassing intelligence coup.  Though Automedon’s documents were found in the German Foreign Ministry archives in Berlin at the end of the war, London refuses to publicly acknowledge the gravity of this security breach.  In 1983, when Margaret Thatcher was asked by historians to look into the Automedon affair, she stalled for seven months before stating it would be “improper” to release any details.

In light of the fact that the captured documents above were shared with the Japanese, it is interesting to recall the details of the fall of Singapore.  The “Gibraltar of the Pacific” fell to the Japanese in March 1942 after mediocre, some said trifling, resistance.  It seems the British defensive plan anticipated a seaborne assault, but the Japanese surprised the defenders by attacking from landward through the jungles of the Malay peninsula.  In fact, after the fall of Singapore the Emperor of Japan gifted Rogge in April 1943 with an exclusive katana Samurai sword.  Only two other individuals have been similarly honored–Erwin Rommel and Herman Goering.

The survivors of Automedon were placed aboard the German blockade runner Storstad and landed in Bordeaux, France, on 5 February 1942.  Here they were herded aboard trains bound for POW camps near Munich (sub-camps of Dachau).  While en route across France Automedon’s 4^th Engineer, Samuel Harper, jumped from the train.  He located friendly Frenchmen who secreted him for several weeks, shifting him to Marseille.  He was smuggled across the Pyrenees, but on 13 April he was captured by Germans in Spain.  As Spain was not part of the Axis, the British successfully negotiated his release on 29 May 1942, and two days later he arrived in Gibraltar.

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