German Sailors in Hampton Roads, in 1915, and Now

In a panoramic view from the Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center at the downtown Norfolk waterfront, the German air-defense frigate Hessen (F 221) is shown docked at Nauticus on March 14, 2018, during a short port visit, alongside the schooner Virginia and the battleship Wisconsin (BB 64). (M.C. Farrington)

A three-postcard series shows a panorama of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1916, with the German commerce raiders (both former luxury liners) Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm looming large over Kolonie Etel Wilhelm, the group of over 50 miniature structures known to the thousands of tourists that visited it simply as "the German village." The German sailors who built the village sold postcards such as these to raise money for the German Red Cross. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection) 

At the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM), we draw great satisfaction in helping visitors, K-12 educators, college students, professors, genealogists, and even scale modelers from across the country with their research projects, but it is always a moment of pride when a book reaches my desk that we helped an author create. 

German Sailors in Hampton Roads: A World War I Story at the Norfolk Navy Yard (History Press: Charleston, SC, 2018)

An excellent example is the new book German Sailors in Hampton Roads by Gregory Hansard, who teaches history and museum studies at John Tyler Community College in Chester, Virginia. While researching photographs at the Virginia Historical Society (now known as the Virginia Museum of History and Culture) a few years ago, he came across some unusual postcards of German passenger liners lying peacefully at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.  A postcard panorama from the time shows dozens of cute little cottages in front of the liners, in stark contrast to the drab shipyard buildings in the rest of the image.  It didn't take him long to learn that the ships were in the midst of one of the strangest sojourns in naval history.  They had carved a global path of destruction across the world's sea lanes during the opening months of World War I, and, despite having sunk 25 merchant vessels between them (including an American barque) along the way, the raiders had been allowed to proceed unmolested into Hampton Roads in early 1915.

His curiosity piqued, Hansard embarked on a journey of exploration that took him from the Library of Virginia in Richmond to the National Archives in Washington DC, and finally to museums and archives in Hampton Roads, including HRNM.  The fruit of his research gives the reader practically everything there is to know about the unusual way World War I came early to Hampton Roads, and explains why the first belligerents from that war to reach our area were so well-treated.  That is, until Americans began dying on the high seas as a result of German naval activities, indirectly resulting in the American declaration of war against Germany in April 1917.

The German army had cemented their reputation for ruthless barbarity during their invasion of Belgium in August 1914, yet seven months after setting out from China (the place Kaiser Wilhelm II first told his troops to behave as "Huns") on their mission of destruction at around the same time, the 800 or so German sailors who entered Hampton Roads with British and French warships on their heels were regarded by many Americans, according to Hansard, as "courteous pirates."

Even Captain H.H. Kiehne of the merchant ship William P. Frye, the first American ship destroyed by the Germans during World War I, became friends with the man who destroyed his ship and took him, his wife, and his crew as prisoners: Captain Max T. Thierichens of the raider Prinz Eitel Friedrich.  The German captain even sought advice from his American prisoner as to the best way to get to Newport News, their original destination.  "Without Kiehne's guidance," wrote Hansard, "the Eitel may have never made it to safety."

It might have been easy to explain away Kiehne's actions as that of a man simply trying to preserve the lives of his family and crew, but taking into account the multiple visits the captain, his wife, and even "a group of ladies" they brought with them back to the German vessels after their release, plus the eight kegs of beer and cigars sent to the German sailors by the Frye's crew, it seems clear that the Germans interned at Norfolk Naval Shipyard were a different breed of warrior.  Some American commentators even went so far as to compare the Prinz Eitel Friedrich, favorably, it seems, with the legendary CSS Alabama, adding to its regional cachet.

"Despite the case of the Frye and potential threats to neutrality," wrote Hansard, "the German sailors were not seen as villains but as members of the Hampton Roads community, where they would live comfortably for eighteen months."  The strange interlude for the Germans, however, finally ended when their village was swept away and their ships were moved to Philadelphia in September 1916.  After war was declared, the ships were confiscated and pressed into the Atlantic Fleet's Cruiser and Transport Force, while the sailors were shipped south to prisoner-of-war camps in Georgia, where they would remain until the end of the war.

As seen from the Portsmouth side, Prinz Eitel Friedrich passes the Norfolk waterfront on its way to Philadelphia in September 1916. She would serve under the American flag during the war as the troopship USS DeKalb. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum collection)

Blasting the 1980s Sammy Hagar song, "Winner Takes it All," from its loudspeakers, the Sachsen-class frigate FGS Hessen (F 221) comes about on the Elizabeth River just off the pier at Nauticus after a three-day visit to Norfolk, Virgnia.  Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and Hospital Point Park can be seen in the background (M.C. Farrington)

Just after opening the package and getting a first look at the new book, I was informed that a German frigate had moored right behind our museum.  At first, it would seem that the visit might be a poignant reminder of historical continuity, but the visit's circumstances couldn't have been more different than those surrounding SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich and SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm 103 years ago.

FGS Hessen, seen here with the carrier Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), deployed with the Truman Strike Group in 2010.  (U.S. Navy/ Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kilho Park via Wikimedia Commons)

The three-day visit of FGS Hessen (F 221) to Norfolk was quite brief and low-key by comparison to its swashbuckling forebears.  After its successful participation in a Composite Training Unit Exercise with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, it was simply in town for a couple of days before deploying operationally as an integrated part of the group. The circumstances were quite routine, but that is what makes it remarkable; a German ship seamlessly working as part of an American strike group set to deploy on missions around the world.

Visits of German warships to our area were far from new, even in 1915.  A German naval contingent participated in the Hampton Roads International Naval Rendezvous in 1893, and ships that would later take part in the Battle of Jutland visited Hampton Roads in 1912.  Today, however, there is no preening nor sabre-rattling.  Neither is there any pomp and circumstance.  They're just another part of the team now.

Gregory Hansard will be speaking about his new book at the MacArthur Memorial in downtown Norfolk on April 11 for the Norfolk Historical Society Lecture Series. 

Chesapeake, to the Bone

Editor's preface: Although it is the home of the annual Brick by Brick Lego model shipbuilding event, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum’s gallery features the fruits of traditional model shipwright labor in wood and metal, both builder’s models made as a guide for the construction of full-size vessels, and miniature recreations of vessels long gone. For a select few, model shipbuilding of this caliber is a profession. For many thousands, it is an enjoyable hobby. Within the obscure recesses of the history of this pursuit we find a dark chapter; one populated by hundreds of unwilling artisans who were prisoners of the British during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. By 1814, more than 72,000 prisoners languished aboard hulks or in dungeon-like "depots" such as Dartmoor, which held more than 5,000 Americans by early 1815.

Model shipbuilding was not merely a leisurely pastime for these poor souls as they filled the empty hours of their confinement. British regulations allowed prisoners to make and sell items to make their lives more tolerable, as long as the raw materials did not come from the depot's supplies. Thus the fruits of their labor, most crafted from scraps of wood and festooned with ornately carved beef and mutton bones, helped ensure their very survival.

An advertisement for the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg, Germany, shows off their largest and most ornate model, proclaiming it "Unique!" (Manfred Stein, Prisoner of War Bone Ship Models, 2015)

The Internationales Maritimes Museum in Hamburg, Germany, possesses 31 of the approximately 510 ghostly-looking bone models from that period known to exist. Its largest model, the 144-centimeter-long Chesapeake, depicts a ship with a storied connection to Hampton Roads.  It was presumed by bone ship model expert Manfred Stein, based upon the model's original provenance, to have been made by American prisoners, probably at Dartmoor, and presented to the widow of her ill-fated last American captain, James Lawrence.
 
That is, until our senior docent took a close look at the model.

By J. Huntington Lewis
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer

Several years ago, I came across a photo of the stern of a very large whalebone model of the United States Frigate Chesapeake that was at The Internationales Maritimes Museum in Hamburg, Germany. The Hampton Roads Naval Museum requested additional photographs, and Mr. Stein kindly provided some snapshots he had taken, as well as a few selected from his book Prisoner of War Bone Ship Models from the Age of the Napoleonic Wars (2015). 

The bone model of the frigate Chesapeake.  Note the plaque at the corner of the display case (closeup below). (Courtesy of Manfred Stein)

The original plaque accompanying the bone model Chesapeake. (Courtesy of Manfred Stein)

Little is known about the provenance of the model except that the a member of The Nautical Research Guild, the ship modeling society, wrote that “The model was made by US POWs in 1813 and given to the widow of Captain James ‘Don't Give up the Ship’ Lawrence after the war.” Mr. Stein, in response to a question from the Guild, said:

I don't know how they brought the model from England to America in the early-1800s, nor do I know how the model came back to London, England, where it was bought by [museum owner Peter Tamm] in 1975. A note accompanying the model and its certificate of authenticity stated “Almost certainly made by American Prisoners of War circa 1813,” The model was in a very bad shape at that time shape at the time, was brought to Hamburg, and years later it was restored by a restorer.

To the left we see the bone model Chesapeake (courtesy of Manfred Stein), while on the right is a detail of a painting by American artist James E. Buttersworth, circa 1815, showing USS Chesapeake's stern during her battle with HMS Shannon on June 1, 1813.  (Courtesy of Joseph Vallejo, Vallejo Gallery, Newport Beach, California)

The decorations on the stern just didn't seem right to me, since the earliest paintings of the engagement between the Chesapeake and Shannon show much less embellishment. I wondered also if American prisoners could acquire the skill to build such a model within the year of their capture by HMS Shannon. 

The Chesapeake bone model's eagle figurehead. (Courtesy of Manfred Stein)

I later found that some of the early American warships were heavily decorated. One such ship was the frigate United States, as featured in the article "Celebrated Figureheads" by H.D. Smith, in the August 1904 edition of The United Service-A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs. The Chesapeake model has the figurehead of an eagle, but, according to a thoroughly researched article by Eugene H. Pool, “The Frigate Chesapeake” in The Mariner, The Quarterly Journal of the Rhode Island Ship Model Society (1937), the USF Chesapeake did not have a figurehead. 
 
William James in his Inquiry into Principal Naval Actions between Great Britain and the United States (1816) published by Anthony H. Holland at the Arcadian Recorder's Office, Halifax, mentions that “her outward appearance was much improved in England by giving her a figurehead.” 

But what figurehead?

By chance in continuing research on the USF Chesapeake prisoners, I was lucky enough to find a genealogy blog by Dennis Segelquist entitled “Civil War Days and Those Surnames” which has a long post by British researcher Martin Bibbing dealing with the mystery of the Chesapeake's figurehead. Bibbing reported:

I have also previously come across another contradictory reference to Chesapeake’s figurehead which doesn’t square with my previous understanding.... A book entitled Hampshire Treasures (1982) … has the following: “The figurehead of the Chesapeake was also to be found in the area (near Wickcombe, Hampshire, at Arford House) ...The figurehead of the Chesapeake, which was captured by the Shannon, was formerly on a summer house at the top of the garden - it was a bird, perhaps an eagle, and a portion of it was said to be part of a lamp bracket in the house. When the 'Chesapeake' was broken up, the figurehead was bought by Mr Ewsters, who was then building (or living in) Arford House.”

In researching what happened to the American prisoners, I found an illustration which indicates that the USF Chesapeake had two stars on her transom.

According to the 1866 book Admiral Sir P.V.B. Broke: A Memoir, edited by John George Brighton, the "S" within the star above the figurehead, seen here on display at Broke Hall (home to the man who commanded HMS Shannon to victory over USF Chesapeake), was the only survivor of the two stars (the "U" having been shot away during the battle) that once graced the transom of USF Chesapeake. 

The transom of the model has two bearded reclining men. A reclining bearded man is the allegorical symbol of a river god. The Shannon is an Irish river. The Chesapeake, correctly a bay, could be considered a very large river. The wreath on the transom is a symbol of victory. Opposing nations brought together are frequently represented by crossed flags. Taken as a whole, I believe the transom decorations are an allegorical reference to the victory of the Shannon over the Chesapeake and could have been added only by the British when they were repairing the Chesapeake.

Chesapeake bone model stern. (Courtesy of Manfred Stein)

The whale bone model of the Chesapeake has an eagle figurehead, and the transom decorations appear to be an allegory of HMS Shannon's battle with the Chesapeake.  Therefore it is a reasonable conjecture that model is of HMS Chesapeake, the repaired former-USF Chesapeake.  Even if there were American prisoners from the USF Chesapeake at Dartmoor (which is very doubtful because they were imprisoned at Melville Island, Halifax, Nova Scotia or returned to the United States in cartel vessels) who had the skill to build the model, they would not know of the installation of the eagle figurehead or the different stern decorations. 

The museum plaque had to have been added some time after the model was built.  It was not made by the builder. The error in the provenance was quite understandable, given that model had "Chesapeake" carved on its stern. The assumption would be that it was of the more famous defeated USF Chesapeake, rather the HMS Chesapeake. It is also reasonable to assume that the whale bone model of the Chesapeake never had occasion to cross the Atlantic.

Who built and under what circumstances the model was constructed may never be known, but it is truly one of the world's most magnificent ship models. So truly the model isn’t the USF Chesapeake, but is still the Chesapeake. 

Editor's Postscript: The February 2018 Hafencity Zeitung story, "The Secret of the 'Chesapeake': Collaboration with American Colleagues Leads to New Insights," gives Hunt Lewis credit for his helping Manfred Stein reassess the bone model Chesapeake's provenance. Although the story was published in German, it is easily translatable.

German Warships and President Taft in Hampton Roads, 1912

USS Idaho (BB-24) waiting for the German squadron east of Hampton Roads

Those who hold public office know that one must be careful when making a comment within earshot of the media.  In 1910, the battleship USS Minnesota (BB-22) made a port call in England. During an official reception, the mayor of London asked Minnesota's commanding officer, the always outspoken Captain William Simms, what the United States would do if England were attacked by a foreign power. Simms responded, "It is my opinion that you may count on every man, every dollar, every drop of blood of kindred from across the sea."


The German dreadnought SMS Molkte near Fort Monore

This statement infuriated Kaiser Wilhelm who naturally believed he was speaking of the German Empire. Relations between Germany and the United States were lukewarm at best in the early 20th century, particularly with Germany's increased involvement in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, President Howard Taft had to publicly reprimand Simms and apologize to the Kaiser in person.  But that was not good enough for German diplomats. The diplomats also noted in their official protest that the American Navy frequently visited France and Great Britain, but never Germany. 

The German Squadron from left to right-The cruisers SMS

Stettin and Bremen and the battleship Molkte.

The Germans demanded a public showing of goodwill between the United States and the Germans.  Taft agreed. In the Summer 1911, the Navy's Second Division of the Atlantic Fleet travelled to Kiel, Germany where the Kaiser and the entire German fleet greeted them.

In the Summer 1912, the German Navy reciprocated the visit with three ships, the cruisers SMS Stettin and Bremen and the brand new dreadnought-type battleship SMS Moltke. Realizing that Taft was in the middle of a reelection, the Kaiser wanted to send the ships as not to cause distraction to the American election season. Thus he sent them to Hampton Roads from Kiel in May 1912. The three ship squadron arrived off the Virginia Capes in late May, and were saluted by USS Idaho (BB-24) upon arrival. Two divisions of U.S. Battleships lined Hampton Roads to greet the Germans, including Utah (BB-31), Michigan (BB-27), Delaware (BB-28), and South Carolina (BB-26).

The Presidential yacth Mayflower entering Hampton Roads
and approaching the line of U.S. battleships on the left and
the German squadron on  the right.


Taft arrived in the Presidential yacht Mayflower and boarded Molkte. There, Vice Admiral Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz greeted the President and his entourage and personally gave him a tour of the ship. Taft remarked "Admiral, I'm glad to welcome you and to have an opportunity of visiting the Moltke, of the finest ships I have ever seen." Upon leaving the ship, Moltke's band struck up the "Star Spangled Banner." Once the Hampton Roads' festivities were over, the senior staff of the German ships proceed to Washington and New York City where they were wined and dined by America's leading politicians and business leaders.

The Washington, D.C. photo studio of Harris and Ewing followed the President to Hampton Roads and took these very vivid shots of the President, the U.S. Navy and the German squadron. Many more of the studio's collection can be found at the Library of Congress' website.

President Taft being given a tour of Moltke by German Vice Admiral Hubert von Rebuer-Pachswitch