OCR Text |
Show GERMAN RAIDER 15 SEA HAS ON BOARD THE CREWS OF FIVE VESSELS AND LOOKING FOR MORE. Steamer Given Up for Lost Sails Into Hampton Roads In Charge of German Ger-man Crew, Crossing Ocean Through British Fleet. Norfolk. Va- Given up for lost days ago, the British passenger liner Appam, plying in the West African trade, sailed like an apparition in Hampton Roads on Tuesday, flying the German naval ensign and with her ship's company under guard of a German prize crew. She brought word of a mysterious German commerce raider, the ..Moewe. which now roams the seas, and had on board the crews of seven British merchantmen and admiralty transports trans-ports captured by the Moewe before she seized the Appam and started her across the Atlantic for an American port with Liteutenant Hans Berge, of the German naval reserve, and twenty-two men in charge. The Appam now lies off Old Point Comfort, under the guns of Fortress Monroe, waiting for the state department depart-ment at Washington to determine her status whether she is a man of war subject to internment or a German Ger-man prize. According to the story lold with great reserve by Lieutenant Berge to Collector Hamilton, when he formally reported his presence in American territorial waters, the 'Moewe captured cap-tured the Apam, bound from Dakar, French West Africa, for Liverpool, after a brief show of resistance on January 16, sixty 'miles north of the Madeira islands. On board the Moewe then were the crews of five vessels previously captured, all of whom were transferred to the Appam. From all reports, the raider is a converted German merchantman with a large battery of guns of fairly large a false battery of guns of fairly large caliber. On January 17 she engaged in battle an Australian trader, the Clan MeTavish, which she sank after an exciting combat with a loss of fifteen men killed on the Clan MeTavish. Me-Tavish. The Appam, which was ten miles away at the time in charge of the prize crew, steamed hurriedly back to the scene and rescued four members of the crew of the sinking Clan McTavis struggling in the water. Later, under orders from the commander com-mander of the raider, Lieutenant Berge headed his prize for an American Ameri-can port and parted! company with the Moewe. Nothing has been seen or heard of the raider since, and the Appam Ap-pam steamed across the ocean on an 'uneventful voyage, reaching the Virginia Vir-ginia capes at 5:45 Tuesday morning. On board the Appam all told are 452 persons, the prize crew of 23; twenty German civilians who are on their way to England for internment. 138 seamen captured with the British ships; 116 passengers on the Appam and the Appam's crew of 155. |