Cargo Submarine U-Deutschland Artifacts and Model

[UBremen]

Would anyone know the whereabouts of the presentation photo showing Prince Henry of Prussia, on the back of which is written a poem dedicated to the U-DEUTSCHLAND? Might there be a repository of Kaptiän Paul König’s papers? In early June, the Prince and Princess of Prussia paid a visit to the U-DEUTSCHLAND prior to her departure for Baltimore. Kaptiän König is said to have dubbed the poem his “Lucky Star”

Hello STBaltimore,

this is all what I know to that poem:


But I don't think that's what you mean.

Regards
Claas

[STBaltimore]

Lost all of my last compostition when the following message came up:

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Let me try this again...

Claas, You continue to amaze me (and others I am certain) with what you pull out of your hat. I thank you for the poem wording done up in such a nice format too.

This is the translation I got. I think someone else could do a better one with it though.

"To fight and argue is not your occupation, for peaceful trade one you only created .
Go then, God blesses you on this trip, is courageous and boldly faithful-German kind! From deepest heart all luck wish Germany you – returns completely reliably!"

Heinrich, Prince of Prussia

[UBremen]

Here is another poem of the prince (formerly known as "The Symbol" ), it is a little bit differnt:


I do not know if the prince was so creative that he wrote several of poems. Or does anyone have the poem something refined. Who knows ...

Regards
Claas

[drmessimer]

Claas: Those poems are interesting because they are examples of the degree to which the Germans made the point that the U-Deutschland, and by extension the entire cargo U-boat project, were entirely non-military in nature. That sort of high level propaganda is pretty clever. After all, if Prinz Heinrich says the boat is just a merchant vessel, how can it not be true? Unfortunately for Germany, the cargo-submarine project was started a year too late. Dwight

[STBaltimore]

“LUCKY STAR” ON U-BOAT.

Picture of Prince Henry With Poem by Him Is Prized.

Special to The Washington Post.

Baltimore, Md. July 12. – One of the greatest treasures on board the Deutschand, more precious in the captain’s eye than the cargo which the submarine carried, is a “lucky star” bestowed on the ship by Prince Henry of Prussia, with a poem dedicated to the Deutschland on the back.

The Prince and Princess of Prussia visited the undersea craft in early June. Both expressed themselves as amazed and delighted with the wonderful marine invention. [sic] and at the captain’s request the prince gave the ship a photograph of himself, on the back of which he wrote a poem in German.

Special to The Washington Post, Jul 13, 1916, pg 2.

[STBaltimore]

Here's a side note from The Washington Post July 10th 1916:

“One of the most conspicuous things about the Deutschland is her name, painted in big gold letters about a foot high, in the form of an arc around the anchor chocks.”
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The above may have been a comment made by Captain C. O. Coleman, a Chesapeake Bay pilot and member of the Maryland Pilots' Association, who replaced Captain Frederick D. Cooke, a Virginian pilot soon after it was learned that the U-DEUTSCHLAND was headed up to the Port of Baltimore.

We can but wonder if the U-BREMEN too had her name painted in gold letters around her anchor chocks. If the lettering was done in raised form (cast into the metal itself) we may yet find out one day.

STB

[drmessimer]

“One of the most conspicuous things about the Deutschland is her name, painted in big gold letters about a foot high, in the form of an arc around the anchor chocks.”

Chocks? You mean those gadgets used to secure an anchor ondeck? Or was he trying to say Hawsehole? If he meant the former, the U-Deutschland didn't secure her single anchor on the deck, so there wouldn't have been a need for chocks. If the latter, she had only a single starboard bower anchor, so there wouldn't have been any need for him to talk in the plural. Anyway, Here is a photo of the boat's only hawsehole, conspicuously absent are gold, foot-high letters in an arc around the hole. Sounds to me like the good captain was telling a sea story to a gullible reporter. Dwight

[STBaltimore]

Let's take a closer look in search of the gold lettering arc.



The little hole at the top of the stem in the bow is a called a hawse hole. Above it is an open chock through which lines are run out to the New London pier. Those lines are attached back along the deck to a set of fore-and-aft bits. Sometimes, bits are mistakenly called chocks. Mistaken nomenclature happens every day. There are accounts of U-DEUTSCHLAND being at anchor at Baltimore when in fact the date indicated that it was actually moored at the McLean pier. Still, the gold lettering isn't visible in the image above. Do we chalk it up to it being a bright day? After all, we know that the decking and turret in similar images at New London shows that they both were painted black.

Their is a chance that the lettering could be found somewhere between where the coil of line is visible to somewhere back where the men are seen up to their waists in the forward hold.

Bay Pilot C.O. Coleman who boarded at the Capes (probably on the Md Pilots' Assn outside Steamer CARMINA*), rode U-DEUTSCHLAND up the Chesapeake until it reached it's anchor drop near Leading Point at Toms Cove and was relieved by a Baltimore docking pilot for the freighter's final move to her Baltimore pier.

I believe that it was Captain Coleman, possibly the public health officer from the quarantine launch, or the pilot who relived Coleman who offered the gold lettering observation mentioned in the press article.

The image doesn't show the arc lettering. Then again, by the time the undersea freighter reached New London with her new blackened deck and superstructure the gold lettering may itself have become history.

I'm on tenterhooks to see what Claas comes up with next.

*The Sun newspaper of Baltimore Jan 21, 1916 The Steamer Pilot, in charge of Capt.George Newkirk, left for the Capes station and passed out the channels... I have yet to ascertain which pilot boat Captain C.O. Coleman used to board the U-DEUTSCHLAND.

[drmessimer]

Actually, In his written report to the Admiralstab on 28 August 1916 he said that the pilot who came aboard from the Pilot Boat, Relief, was Capt. Fred Cocke (I misspelled it as Cooke) earlier. The report is found in MFP T1022, Roll 658, PG75197, NARA. And sunshine or none, I haven't seen even a hint of "foot-high gold letters" in any of the photos we have. Dwight

[STBaltimore]

... the pilot who came aboard from the Pilot Boat, Relief, was Capt. Fred Cocke (I misspelled it as Cooke) earlier. The report is found in MFP T1022, Roll 658, PG75197, NARA.

Is this the same report where König's name is also misspelled as Captain Kairig in the New York Times article on page one of their July 10th 1916 issue and in the Baltimore papers of the same date?

...I haven't seen even a hint of "foot-high gold letters" in any of the photos we have.

We know that Norfolk-based Pilot Frederick D. Cooke was promptly relieved and asked to disembark once O.C. Coleman, of the Maryland Pilot Association, came aboard.

The foot high lettering would have been applied flat on the deck so, with foreshortening, it might be impossible to see, especially in a post-Baltimore image where any kind of change could have occurred.