The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-05


 New York. Feb. 5-Identity of the masked hfghwayman of the Atlantic which ca ptured the British liner Ap- pam off the Cenary Islands on Jan. 1 5 and sent her to Norfolk a German prize of war was made known last night by officers of the other British steamships she captured and sank, when they arrived here last night with the Appam's passengers from Norfolk on the Old Dominion liner Jefferson
 These officers went on board the raider and had ample time to look her over from stem to stern. They agreed, as Lieut.. Hans Berg, who took the Appam to Norfolk, has insisted, that the captor was the Moewe. But she was not the surveying ship Moewe or any other Moewe known in mari time circles. She was a new freight steamship equipped with guns, and as taill to the Appan told Mrs. Francis Fuller, wife of the Commissioner Gen eral of Ashanti. who was an Appam passenger, the raider was one of a fleet of nine such vessels fitted out by the Germans to prey on British merchantmen, two of which already have made their way out of the Kie1 Canal to the high seas.
 SaIuted British Warships
 Mrs Fuller said she talked with this German seaman on the Appam several times and that he conf1ded to her one day about the nine craft, say Ing that the captor of the Appam made her way to sea on New Years Day. and. with a Swedish flag flying, passed and saluted three British war, vessels of the North Sea fleet.
 She was named the Moewe, which is German for seagu11, because she was painted white originally, and be- cause German craft of that name have been favored by fortune for mny years past.
 t Several of her crew were from the surveying ship Moewe and wore their old hat bands. Others had hat bands marked Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse, the North German Lloyd liner which was sunk on Aug. 26, 1914, off the African coast, near the Canary Islands by the British cruiser -Highf1yer.
 The mysterious cruiser Karlsruhe, whose guns, it had been suggested, might have been installed on the raider, did mot enter into any part of the makeup of the personnel or equip ment of the new Moewe. Neither were the interned German sailors who left Norfolk on the yacht Eclipse. and whose fate is unknown, in her party
 The British officers described her as a new freighter that apparently had been selected for hurried converting into a cruiser, because all her fittings had not been installed, and she could be equipped easily with guns without any ripping away. She may have they said, as she was the same size and had a 1ifeboats with the name Ponga on it's bow.
 A vessel of $500 Tons.
 They described her as about a 6,50o- ton vessel, with a large coal capacity as well as fittings for fruit carrying so that she was designed for rowing, and would have been classed as tramp. She had one funnel and two nasts There was. no warship con struction about her except the sup ports for the gun bases, which had been riveted roughly into /her frames.
 She carried five fifteen centimetre4 guns, or about six-inch ones. Four wre installed forward two on either side and or1e aft. Those forward were set low on the deck and hidden by5 wooden shields that lifted up beside them like trap doors and with a cover on them appeared like nothing more harmful than a well slowed forward deck load of freight. The one aft was covered by a small false deck house that could be lifted off and folded up like a portable house. Everything exterior about her was painted black, and with the white undercoating gave her a smear after a few days at sea that melted even in the gathering dusk and bleared out her identity in the sun.
 Her holds were filled with coal and supplies enough for her to remain at sea as long as two months without replenfshing. None of her foodstuffs was given to the Appam, though, and there was a shortage of food on the British liner. There was no suffer ing, but during the last four days on the voyage across the Atlantic from the Canaries to Norfolk those aboard her had nothing but rice and cheese rest of his crew and his captives He even permitted Capt. Harrison of the Appam to retain his seat at the cen tre table in the saloon.
 Quickly Suppresses Plot.
 Both the Appam's passengers and the officers from the sunken ships admitted that a plot brewed on the l Appam to overpower lieutenant Berg i and the German sailors of the prize l crew with him, but the German officer | calmly warned every one not to start l anything. He pointed to the bombs | he had placed about the Appan and | how he had wired them all | to the bridge so that they could all be l set off from there by a mere throwing l of a switch with his fingers. He said chad made up his mind if | a British cruiser overlook the Appam | he would signal to her that he had 1 many British subjects on board, and | that if she interfered with him he | would set off the bombs
 iI'1l go with yous'' he said quietly i and firmly, but without bit of bray | ado. Then he added: