Duel of doppelgangers

The Cap Trafalgar leaves Montevideo on August 22, 1914, on a private voyage. Painting by Willego Stöver. Photo Collection of Andrzej Danilevich

The passenger steamer Cap Trafalgar was a new steamer launched in 1913. On her maiden voyage, she left Hamburg on March 10, 1914, heading for the ports of South America. However, the second transatlantic crossing, which began in July, quickly ended its peaceful operation due to the outbreak of war.

After arriving in Buenos Aires on 2 August, most of the ship's passengers disembarked at Cape Trafalgar (18 BRT, shipowner Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft from Hamburg).

getting ready for the return trip. Only 3500 tons of coal were mined, but the captain of the ship Fritz Langerhans counted on refueling in Montevideo, where the ship intended to enter. However, the news of the outbreak of war between Germany, Great Britain and France reached the ship in Buenos Aires, so Cape Trafalgar remained in port, and on August 16 the naval attache of the German Embassy in Argentina appeared on board with an order to requisition the ship by the navy in order to use it for private activities.

The next day, the ocean liner left Buenos Aires and 2 days later entered Montevideo, where the remaining 60 passengers and crew unfit for military service were discharged. There they replenished fuel and took 3096 Navy reserve officers from the German cargo steamer Camarones (2 brt) from the port. On board the Cap Trafalgar there was one passenger who did not want to leave the ship - it was a certain Braungholz, who was a veterinarian, and he was carrying ... a couple of breeding pigs. Then Langerhans decided ... to recruit this "medic" into the crew - although there was a ship's doctor on board.

The Cap Trafalgar then left Montevideo at noon on August 22, officially bound for Las Palmas in the Spanish Canary Islands, and in fact for the Brazilian uninhabited island of South Trinidad, about 500 nautical miles off the coast of Brazil. During the voyage, the ship was disguised as a British Carmania passenger turbine (19 GRT) which the Germans knew was in the area. To do this, they removed the third chimney, which was a dummy (it housed only the exhaust pipes and the condenser of the turbine that drives the central screw), and painted the unit accordingly. It is reported that the choice of "Carmania" was made taking into account the fact that Braunholz sailed on it before the war and on it he took part in the October rescue of people from the burning British passenger steamer "Volturno" (524 BRT) in October 1913 and had a copy a newspaper with an article on the subject with him.theme and photos of Carmania…. At midnight on August 3602-28, Cap Trafalgar arrived at the shores of South Trinidad and in the morning met the German gunboat Eber there. This rather old ship was previously stationed in German West Africa, from where, together with the steam cargo ship Steiermark (29 GRT), it reached the island on August 4570 to transfer its weapons to Cape Trafalgar. Other suppliers were already waiting there - the German steamers Pontos (15 GRT), Santa Isabel (5703 GRT) and Eleonore Woermann (5199 GRT) and the chartered American steamer Berwind (4624 GRT). On the same day, the German light cruiser Dresden arrived there, which, having taken a cargo of coal from the suppliers, left with the Santa Isabel.

Photo Collection of Andrzej Danilevich