Ten months in a German raider

by John Stanley Cameron

Later on, from some of the officers that had been on shore at Sunday Island, I found out there had formerly been a family living there, but at this particular time they were away on a visit, probably to New Zealand, as they had left their house fully furnished and with quite a supply of provisions on hand. Everything indicated that they intended returning at a later date. A calendar hanging on the wall indicated that this family had left there between April 17th and 23d. When the loss of the prisoners was finally discovered there was a great rumpus, and as a punishment all the prisoners were kept below for twenty-eight days, being allowed on deck for only one hour each day, weather permitting, for exercise. The British captain said that those were the most awful days he ever experienced in his life and that each day he and the rest were getting perceptibly thinner. Just about this time I got the sign from the sentry that the prisoner officer was coming and I had to beat a retreat. Afterwards I found out that it was not the prisoner officer but the mine officer, Lieutenant Dedrick, who proved to be a humane officer and a champion of the prisoners. Dedrick came down below into the hell hole and got one good lungful of the rotten atmosphere and went immediately to the Commander and reported conditions. Commander Nerger at once called both doctors and accompanied them aft on a tour of inspection. The next day everybody was chased on deck and the "Hell Hole" below was cleaned out and better ventilation arranged for; it was also painted; also the captured captains and ships' officers were given quarters to themselves, while the whites and blacks were separated. On the whole the conditions for these two hundred men were improved one hundred per cent. The prisoner officer was confined to his room for five days for allowing such conditions to exist. Nerger had inspected these quarters before, but only when the men were on deck and the place freshly cleaned out. Personally I do not think he knew how bad conditions were.

Along in the first part of January I learned by wireless that of the two men who swam for shore at Sunday Island the first assistant engineer was drowned, while the other reached shore in an exhausted condition. He and his companion while swimming ashore became separated in the dark and the mate did not know for a certainty whether his chum was taken by a shark or drowned from exhaustion. He stayed on the island for somewhat over two months, living on the provisions that were left in the house and on fruit, of which there was a great abundance. He was finally taken off by a Japanese cruiser whose attention was attracted by his signal fire, which he kept burning day and night. The cruiser finally landed him in New Zealand.

All this time we were steaming in a northerly and westerly direction. When we arrived at the southernmost end of New Guinea we stopped and lay to for a couple of days. I soon learned that we were waiting for a steamer and expected her any minute. During these days the Wolf's hydroplane would go up to reconnoitre three times a day. It would travel fifty or sixty miles on clear days, and from a height of three thousand metres it had a vision of ninety miles, so the Germans claimed. One of the German sailors told me that in another day or so we should have plenty of beer—that they had picked up a wireless message stating that the Australian steamer Matunga would soon arrive in Rabul with five hundred tons of coal and three hundred tons of foodstuffs, so many hundred cases of beer, etc., for the Government. Sure enough, on the morning of August 4th I was awakened by my orderly with the usual supply of cotton batting for our ears. Shortly thereafter there was a bang from one of the cannons and the Matunga stopped. Lieut. Rose and the prize crew went on board and took charge. In about an hour the launch came back with the Matunga's captain, Donaldson, and his officers and crew, also sixteen Australian soldiers who were en route to the Islands. Both steamers then proceeded north, arriving on August 10th at a place in northern New Guinea that we named Pirate Cove.

SHOWING 4.7 "ORDINARY" PORTSIDE GUN FORWARD ON "WOLF."
LIEUT. ROSE WITH BINOCULARS.

On the way to Pirate Cove Commander Nerger practised all kinds of naval manœuvres with the Wolf and the Matunga. At one time he would engage her in battle and finally after a fierce encounter, by superior manœuvring he would destroy her. The next time the Matunga would be an enemy's merchant vessel and the Wolf would sneak up to her, suddenly dropping her ports, and make the capture. This manœuvre was carried out quite realistically, the boarding crew supposedly meeting resistance and finally taking charge of her after a fight on deck, in which the boarding crew's bayonet drill would come in handy. At another time the Matunga would be a German cruiser and Nerger would direct her attack against the enemy. At this time he was probably anticipating being made an Admiral on his return to Germany and was getting what practice he could.

At Pirate Cove naked New Guineans, men, women and children, came out to the Wolf in thirty feet long canoes for tobacco, which was the only understandable word they could say. They offered to swap parrots, pigs, cocoanuts, sugar cane, bits of coral, woven mats of garish colours and queer pattern, showing whales, birds and primitive human figures. The Wolf's officers got first whack at the bargains and went in strong for the fancy mattings, but when they got them aboard found them full of native vermin. These souvenirs for their wives and sweethearts were promptly turned over to the antiseptic department and cleaned, for the Wolf had on board a complete dis-lousing plant through which all new prisoners were put, whether they needed it or not. The German sailors had second choice after their officers and went in strong for parrots and cocoanuts. The prisoners, who could buy tobacco at the Wolf's canteen, if they had any money, had last choice of the New Guinea merchandise. I had no money on the Beluga, having sent mine by draft to Sydney, but I had stacks of clothes, and to get a little ready "canteen" money I sold some of them, the Wolf's officers paying me $25.00 for second-hand suits and $3.00 for second-hand shoes.

The natives were cleaned out by the Wolf. Among the purchases was an alleged New Guinea pig, which had the legs and body of a deer and the head of a porker—and it had fur, too. God! I never saw anything like it. It didn't have an orthodox corkscrew tail but a compromise between a pig's and a deer's tail. The pig mascot was given the freedom of the Wolf and dashed if it didn't lick every dog on the ship. We had seven dogs on board, taken from sunken ships—dachshunds, fox terriers, all sorts—and the pugnacious deer-pig cleaned them all up. But the Germans were too much for it. After two months in German company the pig couldn't stand it any longer and, after the slaughter of the Hitachi Maru, of which it was an eyewitness, it committed suicide by leaping down an open hatch to its death fifty feet below. The Germans buried the pig at sea with military honours.

While we were lying in Pirate Cove the cargo and coal of the Matunga were transferred to the Wolf; also nine of the Matunga's passengers and the balance of her crew. Quarters were provided for these prisoners on the same deck where I was. There was a Colonel and a Major with his wife, belonging to the Australian medical corps; three Australian military captains; three civilian planters, who were en route for the plantations on the Island, and the stewardess of the Matunga. This addition of prisoners to the top side was a welcome change to myself and family, as it gave us somebody else to talk to, and I was also able to get news of the war from another source than the German. I was anxious to learn what steps America had taken or contemplated taking. To hear those Australian chaps talk you would have thought that the war was a high lark, and that just as soon as Great Britain got around to it she, ably assisted by the Australian forces, would chase Fritzy off the map.