The Cruise Of The Raider Wolf

Nonfiction, History, Military, World War I, Germany, British

• Author: Roy Alexander
• ISBN: 9781786254634
• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Publication: November 6, 2015
• Imprint: Lucknow Books
• Language: English

The Cruise of the Raider “Wolf” is not intended as another war book; it is the story of one of the strangest and greatest sea adventures of modern times.

The Wolf has become a legendary figure—a name connected with strange happenings at sea; but to most people it is only a name. The actual cruise was a shadowy, mysterious affair; and for many reasons the history of the cruise has remained equally vague. Briefly, this raider slipped out of Germany in 1916, and for fifteen months roamed the seas of the world depending for fuel and food on the captures she made.
Her very existence depended on these captures not becoming known. Ships encountering the Wolf therefore simply disappeared, their fate unknown. The raider roamed the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific oceans, even touched the Arctic and Antarctic seas. And she capped this unparalleled cruise by running the blockade back to Kiel.

Incidentally, the Wolf was the only enemy warship to enter Australian or New Zealand waters. She mined the coasts of both these countries.

After the raider’s return to Germany there was a world-wide blaze of publicity. The reception of the Wolf’s men in Berlin was one of the outstanding war events in the German capital. Then the Wolf disappeared from public notice as quickly as she became famous. One reason for this was that Captain Nerger, the raider’s commander, was not a publicity seeker and was not in particularly high favour in Germany. It was necessary to receive him with honour after he brought his ship back from such a cruise, but after that he was quietly moved to an obscure post and was heard of no more.

The author was a prisoner aboard the raider for the last nine months of the cruise.