The Wolf, the Seagull and the Penguin: German commerce raiders!
How do you attack your enemies’ shipping lanes when your warships are hunted down everywhere on the globe and when you are blockaded yourself?
The Germans found a solution to this problem: They armed merchant vessels with guns and mines. The ships were equipped with collapsible sides behind which their weapons were hidden, they could erect fake masts and funnels to alter the ship’s silhouette and they sailed under neutral flags.
It worked pretty well: Those ships could get close to their victims without raising suspicion and then attack them by surprise. The ships would be looted for valuable raw material to be sent back to Germany and then sank or captured and used as auxiliary ships.
World War I Commerce Raiders
The two most successful raiders of WWI were the SMS Wolf and the SMS Möwe (Seagull). The Wolf sailed 451 days without interruption before making it back to Germany, the longest voyage undertaken by a warship in WWI. During those 451 days, the Wolf sank or captured 14 ships and an extra 13 ships sank due to the mines she laid. The Möwe operated 3 sorties, sinking or capturing 41 ships with an extra 3 claimed by its mines.
Both ships survived the war. They were handed over to the allies as war prizes after 1918.
A Penguin with Teeth in World War II
Following the success of commerce raiders of WWI, the German navy decided to play the same trick all over again in WWII. The most successful German raider of WWII was called the Penguin. The ship was a freighter armed to serve as an auxiliary cruiser.
The Penguin sailed for a year before being sunk in an engagement with a Royal Navy ship. During her year at sea, Penguin changed her name and appearance 3 times (Soviet cargo ship Petschura, Greek freighter Kassos and finally Norwegian freighter Tamerlane).
The Penguin’s mission was hugely successful: In one year, she sailed 59,000 miles, sank 12 enemy ships and captured 16 other vessels that sailed back to occupied France loaded with 50,000 tons of much-needed raw material.
4 more ships sank due to the mines she laid. Her total score for ship sunk or captured was 154,710 gross register tons.
-RBM.
