Hey I have heard a story of a German commerce raider captain, who completely despised the Nazi's, but in his own words he considered himself as "a true German" and therefore fought for his country as any soldier would. Now the story goes that he was forced to fly the Nazi Naval flag, with the swastika on it, he did this, but was far from proud of it. During an encounter with allied warships, 2 which had been tailing him for a while, he knew the fate of him and his ship was already sealed but was ready to go down with the ship, the crew also agreed. Before the two sides came into direct contact he ordered that the Nazi flag be torn down of its perch and be thrown into the sea, and ordered that the traditional German Navy Flag be flown, this flag he believed in and had honour for. Needless to say he lost the battle and he and his crew went down with the ship. I don't remember any of the names of either the captain or any of the ships involved as a heard it as a child, but my question is; Has anyone ever heard of this? Or was this ever a common practice, in any of the German forces, where they would discard their Nazi symbols for more traditional emblems, whether it was in the Army, Air force or Navy?
yes of sorts but the KM Naval ensign had the swastika in the center, at times the Hilfkreuzers brought down the "fake" countrys flag and did not raise the KM ensign and just started shooting. Pirates they were and quite successful with the demise of most of them, a very interesting and somewhat little known aspect of the naval war that expanded to both Oceans.
Erich Have you any documented instance of this? My sources almost unanimously quote the German AMC as "playing by the rules". The one instance I know where doubts have been raised is the Kormoran vs Sidney combat and even there the main argument is the fact that the Germans won a pirric victory against a superior foe so "they must have cheated". I can find no evidence of the episode Tomcat quotes and AFAIK none of the armed merchant cruisers was intercepted by two ships, was it possibly a blockade runner?
nearly 99 % of the time the KM ensign was brought up but during the heat of battle it is not officially clear that it happened every time. look up Hilfkreuzer on google search and you will find a great site covering each ship and the Allied losses the incident with the Komoroan was one of having the KM light AA pieces in place to rake the bridge besides the heavier 150mm's they got in the first shots so close they could not miss, was the Sydney bridge staff that fooled, it is hard to say. I studied each one of these Auxillaries at some length for several years as the NJG ship Togo was among them but was removed from those duties to be inplace in the East as a significant radar detecting ship for KM and LW combined - this is one of the very few cases where the two worked side by side and with success E ~
I have plenty of documentation on these ships, including a diary of a survivor of Atlantis, so I was curious. I was also surprised at recently finding a number of good quality photos of them as I had always believed they were not photographed for obvious reasons. Still none of their histories seems to fit the episode Tomcat is referring to, and the "went down with the ship" part does not fit the blockade runners, about which I must admit I know little (and can't find the only good reference I had) but they could not have put up any real resistance against a warship, far less two, and AFAIK either scuttled or surrendered when intercepted.
Thanks for the replies guys. Purely based on the posts here it sounds as though it could have been either a propaganda story or a fake all together.
I found 3 possible candidates (intercepted by two ships) in Roskill's "The War at Sea", these are not blockade runners or raiders but supply auxilliaries to the raiders so would have been crewed by KM not merchant navy: - Colburg is the most likely one, she was intercepted by cruisers Camberra and Leander and sunk by gunfire while attemting to escape. Googling RAN Camberra confirms that she tried to resist capture, looking at the disparity in strength and speed makes one wonder ... She was an auxiliarry to Scheer so if her big sister had appeared we would have had a replay of the battle of the River Plate. - Egerland was intercepted by London and Brilliant and scuttled - Esso Hamburg was intercepted by London and Brilliant and scuttled
