During the whole of this time, she was manned chiefly by mercantile marine ratings, enrolled for temporary service in the R.N.R. for the duration of hostilities.
The Laconia, for the first two years of the war was also used as an armed cruiser, seeing special service on the German East African Coast, and taking part in the operations which ended in the destruction of the German cruiser Konigsberg in the Rufigi River. She was then taken out of commission, and returned to the Company’s transatlantic service. She was finally sunk by a German submarine on the 25th February, 1917, American lives being lost aboard her. There is no doubt that this was the “overt act” that helped to confirm the decision of America to enter the war on the side of the Allies.
It is safe to say that all these vessels maintained in their new naval roles, not only the best traditions of the Cunard Company itself, but those of the Mercantile Marine of which they had once been so distinguished a part, and the British Navy of which they became not the least useful and honourable units. To the Carmania, indeed, fell the singular honour of being the only British armed auxiliary cruiser to sink a German war vessel in single armed combat; and the five years war at sea produced few more kindling and romantic stories than that of her duel with the Cap Trafalgar in September, 1914, near Trinidad Island in the South Atlantic.
South African Infantry on board the “Laconia”
Leaving the Mersey, as we have seen, on Saturday, August 15th, she first went up the Irish Channel examining merchant vessels, on her way to the Halifax trade route; where she was to carry out her first patrol duties. Having kept this track, however, for twenty-four hours without adventure, she received orders to sail for Bermuda, and on her way there seized the opportunity of dropping a target and carrying out some practice, firing which not only proved that her gun-layers were exceptionally skilful, but which gave all on board considerably greater confidence in the ship as a fighting unit. On the evening of August 22nd, she sighted the searchlights off St. George, Bermuda, and early next morning performed the difficult task of navigating a channel that no vessel of anything like her great size had ever before been through. Here for the next five days she coaled, while officers and men were able to obtain certain articles in the way of tropical clothing, that they had not had time to procure at Liverpool.
On August 29th she left the Bermudas, and on September 2nd passed through the Bocas del Dragos, at the mouth of the Gulf of Paria. Here, amidst scenery new and entrancing to many on board, she approached the Port of Spain, whence after a couple of days’ coaling, she left to join Admiral Cradock’s ill-fated squadron, which was then searching the coast of Venezuela, and the mouths of its rivers, for the German cruisers Dresden and Karlsruhe. To this squadron she became attached about a week later, and soon received orders to investigate Trinidad Island in the South Atlantic. On September 11th, however, while on her way there, she received orders to try and intercept, in conjunction with the cruiser Cornwall, the German collier Patagonia, which was supposed to be leaving Pernambuco that night; but she was not found, and, as a matter of fact, did not sail for another three days, when she succeeded, in the absence of the Cornwall, in getting away. Before this, however, the Carmania had received orders to continue on her original mission, namely the examination of Trinidad Island, and she accordingly headed down for it. This is a small and lonely piece of land, about 500 miles distant from the South American coast, rising to a height of some 2,000 feet, and being only some 3 miles long by 1½ miles broad, but with a good anchorage on its south-west side. Though often sighted by sailing vessels homeward bound from Cape Horn, this island was well out of reach of any ordinary steamer, and was thus an extremely likely place for an enemy vessel desiring to coal in a convenient and unobserved position. Moreover, although both Great Britain and Brazil had at various times attempted to form small settlements there for the purpose of cultivating the castor oil plant indigenous to the island, these attempts had never been successful, and the island was uninhabited.
The “Caronia” leaving Durban
It was at nine in the morning of Monday, September 14th that the Carmania sighted the island ahead; and soon after 11 a.m. a large vessel was made out, lying on the island’s westward side. It was a bright clear day, with a gentle north-easterly breeze blowing, and the mast of the unknown vessel showed distinctly above the horizon, two funnels becoming visible a little while later. It was at once concluded that she must be an enemy, since it was known that there were no British war vessels in the neighbourhood, and that no British merchant vessel was at all likely to be here. Her exact identity, however, remained a problem that was not to be solved, as it happened, until several days afterwards. The only enemy vessels that might possibly be in the neighbourhood according to the knowledge of those on board the Carmania, were the Karlsruhe, with four funnels, the Dresden with three funnels, the Kron Prinz Wilhelm with four funnels, and the Konig Wilhelm, an armed merchant cruiser which had one funnel. Even had the funnels been altered it could not have been any of these, since the outlines of all these vessels were known to one and another of the experienced and widely travelled observers on board the Carmania, and this uncertainty added to the excitement of a peculiarly thrilling occasion. The sudden pouring out of smoke from the strange vessel’s funnels showed at once that the Carmania had been sighted and that the enemy was getting up steam, while the position of the island added further to the thrilling possibilities of the situation.