auxiliary cruisers

auxiliary cruisers were warships disguised as merchantmen which the Axis used to prey on Allied shipping routes (see Maps 8 and 10).

By far the most successful were the ten German ones, modern vessels between 3,860 and 9,400 tons. All carried float planes and were armed with 15 cm. (5.9 in.) guns, torpedoes, and smaller armaments, which were hidden behind hinged bulwarks, or under false deckhouses and skylights. Five carried mines. They flew the flags of neutral or Allied nations and altered their outlines to appear like the ships under whose names they masqueraded. So cleverly did they disguise themselves, and so adept were they at employing all kinds of ruses that, before the check-mate system was introduced in October 1942, Allied warships had the greatest difficulty telling friend from foe. Their chief function was to disperse scarce Allied naval resources, and disrupt the flow of trade (see also world trade and world economy), but between them they sank or captured over 800,000 tons of shipping. They were normally kept fuelled and provisioned by supply ships (see alsologistics), though Japanese island bases were used to refit and refuel some of them while Japan was still officially neutral.

Part of the British Admiralty's problem in hunting these German raiders down was that only the ENIGMA key they used in home waters had been broken by Bletchley Park. This restricted any ULTRA intelligence-based attacks against them to when they were attempting to leave or return by the English Channel.

The first to leave Germany was Atlantis (ex-Goldenfels) on 31 March 1940. Disguised as a Soviet merchant ship she escaped from Germany into the Atlantic via the Denmark Strait. After laying mines off Cape Agulhas she entered the Indian Ocean where one of her victims yielded current copies of the Merchant Navy Code and secret call-signs which enabled her to intercept other Allied vessels. One of these, Automedon, had highly secret mail aboard which gave invaluable intelligence. Eventually, after sinking or capturing 22 ships, Atlantis was sunk by the British cruiser Devonshire in the central Atlantic.

The next to leave Germany was Orion (ex-Kurmark) on 6 April 1940. En route for the Pacific she sank several ships and in October 1940 joined another raider, Komet (ex-Ems). Komet had left Bergen the previous July and, with Soviet help, had entered the Pacific by using the Arctic route north of Siberia. Together the two raiders sank the New Zealand liner Rangitane, before mounting an attack on phosphate ships off the Pacific island of Nauru, sinking four. Orion then returned to Germany having logged the longest voyage of any raider, 233,000 km. (144,700 mi.). She was sunk by a Soviet air attack in May 1945. Komet returned to Nauru and shelled its installations, before returning to Germany in November 1941. In October 1942 she left on a second voyage, but ULTRA intelligence revealed her position and she was sunk in the English Channel.

The third raider to leave, Widder (ex-Neumark), took or sank ten ships in the Atlantic from May to October 1940, before returning to Brest. But she proved mechanically unreliable and was later dismantled to arm another raider, Michel.

The fourth to sail, Thor (ex-Santa-Cruz), showed just how dangerous the German auxiliary cruisers were. After leaving Germany on 6 June 1940 she sank eleven merchant ships, and on the three occasions she was intercepted by British armed merchant cruisers she outfought them and actually sank one, Voltaire. She returned to Germany in April 1941, but left again the following year, and from January to October 1942 took or sank over 29,000 tons of Allied shipping. While operating in the Indian Ocean she captured the Australian steamer Nankin, aboard which was top secret correspondence. She then captured or sank four more ships before putting into the Japanese port of Yokohama in October 1942 where she was later accidentally destroyed by fire.

In terms of tonnage, Pinguin (ex-Kandelfels) was the most successful. She left Germany on 22 June 1940 and after sinking or taking several ships in Australian and Antarctic waters her crew converted two of her prizes into mine layers, and it was her mines which sank City of Rayville on 8 November 1940, the first US merchant ship to be lost in the war. Pinguin later sank three British ships near the equator, but the distress signal from one of them brought the British cruiser Cornwall, which sank her on 8 May 1941. During ten months she had sunk or captured 28 ships totalling 136,551 tons.

These first six raiders constituted what the Germans called the ‘first wave’. The first ship of the ‘second wave’, Kormoran (ex-Steiermark), at 9,400 tons the largest of the German auxiliary cruisers, sank several ships en route for the Indian Ocean before encountering the Australian cruiser Sydney off the West Australian coast on 19 November 1941. At the time Kormoran was masquerading as a Dutch ship. It must have been a convincing disguise for the cruiser approached too close for safety and in the ensuing action both ships sank.

The next ‘second wave’ raider, Michel (ex-Bielsko), left Kiel on 9 March 1942. To increase her lethal potential, she had aboard a 10-ton motor torpedo boat which her captain employed with good effect. After sinking or taking fourteen ships he took refuge in a Japanese port early in 1943, but during a second sortie, in which he claimed three more victims, he was sunk by a US submarine.

The last German raider to see action was Stier (ex-Cairo). She left the Gironde estuary in Western France on 20 May 1942 and after sinking several ships in the central Atlantic she encountered the armed US Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins. The American ship put up such resistance that Stier, after sinking her, went down too.

In February 1943 one more raider, Coronel (ex-Togo), attempted to break out into the Atlantic, but ULTRA intelligence revealed her presence in the English Channel. She was bombed and disabled, and was eventually forced to return. By that time German U-boats had a much longer range and promised a much higher return than the auxiliary cruisers for the limited resources available, and no further attempt was made to use them.

Five other auxiliary cruisers, two Japanese and three Italian, were also employed by the Axis powers, but none achieved the success of their German counterparts. One of the Italian ships, Ramb 1, was sunk by the New Zealand cruiser Leander, in February 1941. See also German surface raiders.

Bibliography

Muggenthaler, A. , German Raiders of World War II (London, 1978).