colors. The film was released April 7, 1914.
Cap Trafalgar was in service from 1 April 1914 until sunk on 14 September 1914. When war began in Europe in August 1914,
Cap Trafalgar was in Buenos Aires and was laid up pending orders and as already planned, the
German Imperial Navy requisitioned her as an auxiliary cruiser. On 18 August she arrived in
Montevideo for coal and then sailed to rendezvous at the remote Brazilian island of
Trindade, east of Brazil, with the gunboat , which transferred naval officers, ammunition and weapons to the liner. At the same time, her third funnel, which was a dummy, was removed. She was armed with two
10.5 cm SK L/40 naval guns and six
37 mm QF guns, manned by experienced naval personnel, and given the mission to sink British merchant shipping. She was given the codename
Hilfskreuzer B (Auxiliary Cruiser B) and was commanded by
Korvettenkapitän Wirth. After a fruitless initial cruise,
Cap Trafalgar arrived on 13 September at a secret supply base at
Trindade Island to take on fuel from a German
colliers. It was at this base on 14 September that the
Carmania, a British ocean liner built for the
Cunard Line launched in 1905, found the
Cap Trafalgar, having been sent to flush out German colliers and small warships using the inhospitable island as a base against British merchant shipping. Following the outbreak of World War I,
Carmania had been converted into an armed merchant cruiser with eight guns, and put under the command of Captain Noel Grant,
Carmania spotted smoke early in the morning and some hours later was able to surprise the German ship with two colliers in the island's only harbour. Disguised as the
Carmania,
Cap Trafalgar's only battle turned out to be against the real
Carmania. Some accounts incorrectly allege that the
Carmania was itself disguised as the
Cap Trafalgar. Both captains realised that to win, their respective vessels required room to manoeuvre and so, the captains had separately steamed several miles from the island to gain that space. The
Cap Trafalgar also sent out encoded messages in German, announcing the engagement, and the position as
35 degrees west,
26 degrees south, with a NNW heading. Then the ships turned towards each other and the
Carmania began firing, but failed to score any hits, while the
Cap Trafalgar landed the first shot.
Carmania initially fared worse and in the ensuing two hours was hit 79 times, holed below the waterline and had the bridge destroyed by shellfire. However, as the range closed her own guns began to inflict damage, and fires raged on both ships, as sailors lined the rails firing machine guns at their opposite numbers as the ships came within a few hundred yards of each other. Neither ship had the fire control system or ammunition hoists of a warship, so ammunition had to be brought to the guns by hand while the guns fired directly, as they could. Just as it seemed that the fires on
Carmania were out of control,
Cap Trafalgar veered off, lowering lifeboats as she heeled over to port. A shell below the waterline had opened several compartments, and the ship was rapidly sinking, although the colliers later rescued 279 sailors. Fifty-one were killed in the fighting or the sinking (other reports say sixteen or seventeen people died), including Captain Wirth.
Carmania was also heavily damaged, listing severely and burning, with nine dead and many wounded. It was at this point that the German armed merchant cruiser arrived; however, with British warships nearby, its captain feared a trap, since many ships had heard the SOS calls of the
Cap Trafalgar, which, though in German code, had been supplemented by messages from the
Carmania with the British code. The
Kronprinz Wilhelm sailed away without engaging. The
Carmania was listing badly and fires burned, while the bridge communication and navigation equipment were largely destroyed. She limped south, hoping to meet a British cruiser in the area. When rescue arrived on the 15th, the ship and crew likely had only a day or two before sinking. The next day
Carmania was escorted into
Pernambuco by other
Royal Navy vessels. It appears that the German base at Trindade ceased to be maintained after this battle. Some 300
Cap Trafalgar survivors were rescued by the collier
Eleonore Woermann and taken to Buenos Aires. Most were interned for the duration of the war on Argentina's
Martín García Island. The higher ranking officers were given parole to remain in
Buenos Aires. Some of the crew escaped from imprisonment and either settled in Argentina or attempted to return to Germany. In 1918, the remaining crew were relocated to the Immigrant's Hotel in Buenos Aires. After the end of the War, approximately 100 of the Cap Trafalgar's crew who remained in Argentina wished to return to Germany and they were repatriated in September and October 1919. ==See also==