Seagoing Guerrillas
Because the German navy was not adequately prepared to support all of Hitler's aggressive ambitions that led to World War II, it had to assume the role of the underdog. It had to rely in part on the naval equivalent of the guerrilla tactics so familiar today in land warfare. Muggenthaler tells a very interesting story about a small group of German ships and men exercising an old form of naval warfare, though one which was destined to become ineffective with the rapid technological advances made during the war.
His story is about a few merchant ships, converted to heavily armed raiders, that plied the oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic capturing and sinking Allied shipping. Most of these converted merchantmen were old and sometimes in poor physical condition. Some were too slow for the task. He tells about the brave crews who manned these ships and who were like "spies behind the enemy lines," always aware of the fact that the next surface contact or aircraft sighted might mean their doom. As the author writes, "It was not fear of action - they welcomed any fight as a change in routine - it was more the inescapable tension of a man on the lam, always in cop country with no friends to rely on and never sure he was not being tailed."
The logistic problems of obtaining essential fuel and supplies in distant parts of the vast oceans, even the disposition of the large number of prisoners taken, at times seemed almost insurmountable and greatly restricted the raiders' operations. Despite these problems, one ship managed to avoid the extensive Allied surveillance effort and spent a total of 622 days at sea preying upon enemy shipping.
The German U-boat menace which almost defeated England is well known, but few people have heard that nine converted merchant raiders caused the loss of 7.3 per cent as much tonnage as the total U-boat campaign. These raiders destroyed, damaged, or captured 890,000 tons of shipping. But far more important than this impressive tonnage figure was the disruption they caused. In the early years of the war, the Allies, particularly the British, had to divert a large part of their naval strength to tracking down the enemy raiders. In many cases they had to resort to using convoys or reroute shipping around suspected raider areas, thereby creating delays in the delivery of vital war materiel needed for the land campaigns. In effect, therefore, the Allies were denied unrestricted use of the normal sea lanes.
As Allied naval strength increased and surveillance systems improved, the odds against the German surface raiders became overwhelming. In October, 1943, the last converted merchantman-raider was sunk off the coast of Japan by an American submarine.
Muggenthaler based this history on extensive research into both German and Allied records. He built upon this by interviewing German officers and crewmen who served on these ships, as well as some prisoners and survivors of the raider actions. He has written an accurate history that provides an insight into the dangers and hardships encountered by a group of men fighting against overwhelming numerical odds and technological advances that could only spell eventual defeat.
GERMAN RAIDERS'OF .WORLD WAR IIBy August K. Muggenthaler '5lPrentice-Hall, 1977. 308 pp. $14.95
A 1941 graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis,Captain Hurst was a squadron commander of destroyers in the Pacific duringWorld War 11. Retired from the Navy in 1972after serving for six years as ROTC professorof naval science at Dartmouth, he is now administrator for business at Dick's House.
