Ten months in a German raider

by John Stanley Cameron

The addition of these passengers to the top deck squad made it necessary for Commander Nerger to make certain rules and regulations to be observed regarding the distance we could go from our rooms. We were allowed a seventy-foot run-way. Also when anything was going on, such as gun practice, boarding drill, fire and boat drill, we were chased into our rooms. This caused a lot of grumbling but no doubt it was justified. I may add that there was nearly always something doing on the Wolf. They drilled and practised almost continually—practised sinking imaginary ships, indulged in "battle practice," and even practised abandoning the Wolf in boats and sinking their own ship.

While lying at Pirate Cove we had an exciting experience. It seems that some of the Germans had a suspicion that some of the prisoners were going to try to escape by swimming ashore. They doubled the guards both below and on deck and in addition had twenty-four Marines sleep on the afterdeck with their muskets alongside of them. On this particular night the German sailors had stolen a couple of cases of whiskey from the cargo of the Matunga and many of them were pretty badly intoxicated. At 11:30 P.M. one of the guards down below aft imagined that he saw someone making a sneak for the stairs leading on deck. Next moment he shouted "Help! Help!" and blazed away with his revolver in the general direction of the stairway. Naturally the prisoners sleeping on the far side of the stairs made a rush to get out of the line of fire. The guard saw this crowd rushing his way and ran on deck immediately. A general alarm was sounded and men and officers poured on deck from all directions. Just then a shoal of fish some little distance away in the water made a disturbance and the German crew, thinking that somebody was attempting to swim ashore, opened fire on the fish with two machine guns. Also everybody who had a rifle or a revolver opened fire at something. One officer, who stood in front of my room, emptied his revolver into the air, just shooting because everybody else was doing it. Meanwhile, Chief Officer Schmell and three sailors had jumped into the launch and also mistaking the shoal of fish for prisoners trying to swim ashore, made for the spot—and were enthusiastically fired upon by the German machine guns in the dark. It sure was bum team work and a miracle that Schmell and his men were not killed. The launch was punctured in several places. As soon as the big searchlight was put into commission, it became apparent that there was nobody in the water. All the prisoners were then mustered out and counted, and as there were none missing, the Germans decided that it must have been a false alarm and everybody blamed everybody else. When Schmell got back on the Wolf he was raving mad at having been fired at by the machine guns. He wasn't red, but green with anger, and he talked so fast that I couldn't make out what he said, but I heard afterwards that he wanted to court-martial everybody, including the cook. It always will remain a miracle to me that some of our own fellows weren't shot as the frenzied guard emptied his gun before running on deck.

On account of the high hills surrounding our anchorage the Wolf's wireless was not of much account, so the members of the wireless squad erected a station on the top of one of the highest hills. Here they would pick up any news that was flying around and transfer it to the Wolf by means of an ordinary flash light. This was easily readable with a pair of glasses, but unfortunately there was nothing of interest excepting the "press"; however, it gave me an insight of just how much reliance to put into the press reports that the Germans would let us see from time to time. This, of course, was all British press and reports were given as to advances and repulses on the various fronts and also the weekly sinkings. Should the Allied forces advance or the Germans lose a position, their press did not note it, but on the other hand, if the Germans had a victory or there were any political reports in their favour, the news was given us in full detail.

From one of the officers who had been ashore I learned that the native settlement, which at one time evidently had been quite large, must have been visited by some dreadful plague, as the houses in the village were deserted, not a single native living on that side of the bay. He also said that in many of the houses the skeletons of the dead still lay, some inside and some outside of the huts, leading a person to believe that this sickness struck them down suddenly and that they died nearly instantly, as on the porch of one of these huts there was a skeleton with some kind of a dish alongside of it, making it appear that death had come suddenly.

Here at Pirate Cove the doctors were greatly worried on account of fever and malaria and dosed us vigorously with quinine. Lord! I ate enough quinine to last me the rest of my life. There were no capsules on board and we had to eat the raw article, and there was no way of dodging it. Each morning and evening all hands, officers, crew and prisoners, were marched past the hospital steward's office and each was handed his little bit on a spoon, with a glass of water to wash it down. The only satisfaction I had was that it tasted just as rotten to the Germans as it did to me. Strangely my little girl did not dislike it a great deal and I was greatly pleased as I anticipated a riot when she got a taste of the first dose. My wife's share, she being still confined to her room, I used to throw overboard, giving her only an occasional small dose. The quinine used to cause a drumming in my ear and make me halfway deaf.

Undoubtedly it had the same effect on the German sailors yet they were forced to work transferring coal from one vessel to the other. They usually worked three shifts in the twenty-four hours. They would go down in the hold with nothing but a breech cloth on and when they came up they would resemble negroes and their bare bodies would be just running in sweat. At these times I used to feel sorry for them; then they would sink one of our vessels and I would wish them doomed to eternal labour of this kind.

Among the Matunga's heterogeneous cargo were two large horses and one small pony. These were taken care of by the butcher department and I suppose I ate my share. I afterwards told my wife about her eating horse flesh and nearly lost a handful of hair for my information.

On August 26th both Wolf and Matunga proceeded to sea and at 1:20 P.M. the Matunga was sunk by three bombs. From the time of the first explosion until she disappeared beneath the waves was just six and a half minutes. She sank stern first, and as she made the final dive the rush of air below decks blew out the forecastle bulkhead, making it appear as if there had been a fourth bomb concealed there.

Here I am convinced was the only time during the eight months that I was a prisoner on the Wolf that there was ever any serious thought on Nerger's part regarding landing the women, children and medical officers. Before taking the Matunga to sea to sink her, they transferred one of her large life-boats to the Wolf, also a small gasoline launch. These were hoisted on deck and placed in such a manner that they could be put overboard again easily, also they were in such a position that it interfered with the movements of the gun crew, thus proving that they were there only temporarily. One of the officers asked me if I had ever had any experience with gas engines and was familiar with this particular make. I told him I was, having owned at one time an engine of this make. After giving the officer this information he was overheard by one of the womenfolk repeating it to the Chief Officer. We top side prisoners were some worked up, believe me. We had it all "doped out" that after sinking the Matunga we should proceed off some island that was inhabited but had no wireless or cable connections, there the women, children and medicos would be put in the life-boat and I would tow them with the launch to some nearby harbour.

This would have been the logical thing to do if Commander Nerger wanted to conform to the articles of the Geneva Convention, which specifically states that medical officers in event of capture shall be set free at the first available opportunity. Nerger also told me and my wife that he would land us in some safe place at the first opportunity, provided he could do so without jeopardising his own safety. He also told the medical officers and the rest of the women the same thing. I maintain that at this time Nerger could have landed us with perfect safety to himself and his ship—as the Wolf was about to leave the Pacific Ocean, having finished her activities in that locality. At that time nobody had information regarding the Wolf's previous movements nor any knowledge of her mine-laying operations. However, at the last minute he must have concluded that this was too "humane" a procedure and ordered the boats over the side; they were fastened to the Matunga and went down with her. I claim this to have been the acme of inhumanity. He might just as well have condemned the women and children to death right there, because at that time there were ninety-nine and a half chances to a hundred that they would be either killed in action or drowned. I don't believe that there were five men in all the crew of the Wolf, officers included, who ever expected the Wolf to win safely into Germany. There is another point to consider: why did Nerger and his officers continually assure us that the womenfolk should be landed shortly? If he had told the truth like an officer and a man and said he had no intention to land us, then we would have had more respect for him and would not have suffered the bitter disappointment that we did.