[Sailor Steve]

September 25:

SMS Leipzig has left the Galapagos Islands and is again cruising the South American coast. On the 25th she is patrolling the coast of Ecuador and at 0800 hours runs into SS Bankfields, a British freighter registered at 3,768 tons and carrying 5,000 tons of sugar. By 0855 the boarding party has taken Bankfields. Her crew are transfered to Marie and the prize crew follows their cruiser further out to sea, where she is scuttled at 1530 hours. Leipzig and Marie then set course for the Lobos de Afuera Islands.


Cruising down the south-east coast of Ceylon, SMS Emden encounters SS King Lud, an English freighter, 3,650 tons, running in ballast. While carrying no cargo, the King Lud does have its own supply of stores, including grain and potatoes. Emden's stewards are sent over to supervise the transfer of the food stores. When this is done King Lud's seacocks are opened and scuttling charges are detonated. At 1600 hours, with the freighter mostly under the water, Emden takes her leave, setting a course westard toward the port city of Colombo.

At 2200 hours Emden is thirty miles south of Colombo. Avoiding the mistakes of Madras, Colombo has searchlights combing the sea. At 2100 the lookouts sight a merchant ship, lit up as if they had not heard of the German raider preying on their shipping lanes. Justifiably so, as it turns out to be the neutral Norwegian tanker SS Oceanis.

An hour later they come upon yet another ship, sailing out of Colombo and though darkened herself she is clearly marked out by the city's searchlights. At 2300 hours Emden intercepts SS Tymeric, a 3,500-ton English freighter carrying 4,000 tons of sugar. The ship is forced to follow Emden further out into the ocean, so she will be sunk far away from Colombo. No sooner is a prize crew on board than the English captain begins cursing his captors. Leutnant Lauterbach sends a boat back to the cruiser asking for permission to sink the freighter immediately. Permission is granted, and the scuttling crew is sent over. The British crew are forced to leave with minimal possession, leaving behind all the recently purchased Japanese souvenirs. The crew blamed their own captain for this, rather than the Germans, and some of them swore that they would get even with him later.

Before Tymeric could be scuttled lights were sighted approaching from a distance. This was almost certainly the Dutch mail packet Konigin Emma, which had already radioed the port requesting a pilot. The Germans waited quitely in the dark until she had passed, then set about sinking their captive freighter. It was shortly past midnight.

A side-note: The crew of the Emden had been lucky again. As they travelled down the east coast of Ceylon the Japanese cruiser Chikuma was proceeding up the west coast, on her way to join the hunt.