The weekly Alaska citizen., 1917-12-03
REMARKABLE STORY OF GERMAN COMMERCE RAIDER "SEEADLER"
 AS TOLD BY CAPTAIN SMITH

and was kep, aboard because he had made an insulting remark to the captain about German money.
 For about three weeks the raider kep. beating up and down looking or passing ships Meeting none. they went south to Mopeha on July 3l. anchored on the lee side of the islands. and on August the ship was driven hard and fast ashore, The three American captains had gone ashore with the German officers on a picnic. and th" prisoners were left on the ship. Cannon were fired 10 tell he party the ship was in danaar. hut when they returned they found the propeller twisted on the coral reefs md the vessel beyond help. After working all afternoon they gave her I'D as lost and took ashore every thing they could move. including the boats. gear and wireless The wire less plant. a very powerful one, was -r, up between two cocoanut trees. It WAS equipped with sending and receiving apparatus and without diff fcul,y they were able to hear Pago Paeo. Tahiti and Honolulu.
 Or August 23, Captain Smith relat- ,d. the German officers fitted up and armed d small boat and started for the Cook Islands or the Fiji Islands, where they hoped to capture an Am erican ship and come bacn - the crew Count yon Luckner, the master was in charge They were never arUd of again at Nopeha Island,
 After their departure. wireless messages in code from Pago Pago to the American consul were intercept -d and the German crew believed the Count had been captured On Sep rember 5, a French trading schooner from Papeete, the Lutece, put at the Island First Lieutenant kIing took d motor boat and machine gun and captured the ship She had d cargo Of flour, salmon and beef and sup ply ot water King and his crew dlsmautled the wierless plant and left che Island in the Lutece that night, leaving IS souls, including the Ameri- cans, the crew of the French trader and four natives on the island Scant provisions, and bad at that, were left them Besides these they found a few cocoanuls but the great number of rats on the island destroyed them. There was plenty of fish and turtles.
 A small boat had been left behind and the marooned men fitted it up. The captain of the Manila with a small crew started out in the boat for Tahiti on September 8. They failed to reach Tahiti and returned exhausted on September 16. Captain smith with three men took the small boat and managed to reach Pago- Pago ten days later.
 Captain Smith said that after the SeeadIer was abandoned the Germans used dynamite to destroy the ships masts so that passing vessels might not sight them. They were unable to sink the Manila as she was loaded with lumber and the derelict now probably is menace to navigation. Although the Seeadler may be a wreck, it is possible her guns are still in a position to use
 Forty-four persons still are on Mopeha Island, but Captain Smith said they were not in immediate danger of starvation. There are tur- ties and fish on the island, he said, and the water while brackish, is not dangerous. The only danger, he said is of sickness One man had gan grene when he left. Some medicine was left, but he doubtetd if the sur viyors knew how to use it.
 Recent dispatches indicate that the captain of the Seeadler and five of his crew were captured on Sep tember 21 off the Fiji islands by Fitian constabulary What became of the men who left Mopeha island on the Lutece is not known.
 rCDMAA1 CnITOD