SS Automedon I

Available during **Pirates III** event in **2019** (Jul 30th - Sep 3rd).

SS Automedon was a passenger and cargo steamer, launched in 1921. Automedon served during WWII. She was sunk on the 11th November 1940 by the German merchant raiding vessel *Atlantis*.

## Trivia

At the time, the *Automedon* left from the port of Durban in South Africa on the 29th October 1940 with cargo consisting of crated aircraft, motor cars, spare parts, liquor, cigarettes, bagged mail, and food, including frozen meat bound for Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, when at about 7am on the 11th November, in the Straits of Java about 460km northwest of Sumatra, the ship was intercepted by the German Armed Auxiliary cruiser, *SS Atlantis*.

As the two ships got close, at 8:20am, the *Atlantis* raised her *Kriegsmarine* ensign and uncovered her guns. Knowing the *Atlantis* was getting ready to attack, the crew of the *Automedon* attempted to send out a distress signal, but only managed to send, "*RRR – Automedon – 0416N*" ("RRR" was the standard distress code for coming under attack by an armed raider) before the *Atlantis* jammed the *Automedon*'s transmission. At a range of 2,000 metres, the *Atlantis* open fire. Four of *Atlantis*'s salvo rounds hit the *Automedon* amidships. One shell destroyed the *Automedon*'s bridge, killing everyone present, including the *Automedon*'s Master, William Brown Ewan. The *Automedon*'s helmsman (and later folk musician), Stan Hugill who was present on the bridge, was the only survivor.

Despite taking multiple hits from the *Atlantis*'s guns, the Automedon was still moving, but the final salvo fired from the *Atlantis* brought the *Automedon* to a stop and in the process, killing a crew member who attempted to reach the *Automedon*'s DEMS gun on the *Automedon*'s stern to return fire.

A boarding party from the *Atlantis*, came aboard met the *Automedon*'s first officer. The leading officer from the *Atlantis*'s boarding party, Ulrich Mohr noted the damage the *Automedon* had sustained in the battle was one of the worse that he seen. Every structure above the Automedon's hull had been virtually destroyed by close range shelling. Six of the *Automedon*'s crew had been killed with another 12 injured. Of the 12 injured, six were transferred to the *Atlantis* for medical treatment.

Mohr then located the *Automedon*'s 194-ton Strong Room near the bridge and blew off the door. In the Strong Room were 15 bags of secret mail, destined for the British Far East Command in Singapore, including Fleet Orders, Gunnery Instructions, MI6 Intelligence Reports, and the Merchant Navy Code Books.

In a green canvas bag, sitting in a drawer in the heavily damaged chart room, Mohr had located a copy of a top-secret report drawn up by the Admiralty's Chiefs of Staff, destined for the Commander in Chief of the British Far East Command, Robert Brooke-Popham. The report had outlined in detail, the vulnerability of British and Commonwealth defense positions in the Far East, in particular, their defenses of the British and Commonwealth garrison on the Island of Singapore and their roles they would play against the build-up of Japanese forces if and when Japan enters the Second World War on the side of the Axis forces.

The report was then dispatched to Japan, on board the captured vessel, *Ole Jacob* under the command of Corvette Captain, Paul Kamenz and a crew of six where it arrived at the German Embassy in Tokyo on the 5th December 1940 where it was passed onto the German Naval attaché, Rear Admiral Paul Wenneker who then dispatched the report to Germany, via the Trans-Siberian Railway and arriving in Berlin on the 10th December 1940.

After viewing the original report, a copy of the report was sent back to Wenneker who then passed the copy onto the Vice Chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy General Staff, Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondō. In a diary, Wenneker had recorded that that handover of the report to Kondō, had allowed the Japanese to identify "*the key weaknesses in the British Empire that could not be identified from outward appearances*". After reading the report, the Command-in-Chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto wrote in his diary in January 1941, that report seized from the *Automedon* had provided the Japanese with the intelligence needed to launch a combined attack on both the American and British forces in both the Far East and the Pacific.

Upon learning the sinking of the *Automedon*, the Admiralty in London assumed the Chiefs of Staff's report was thrown overboard and changed the merchant codes, unaware that the *Automedon*'s officer tasked with throwing the report was one of the six killed in the battle between *Automedon* and the *Atlantis*.

The sinking of *SS Automedon* is believed have an impact on Japanese strategy in the Second World War in the Pacific and the Far East and leading to both the Japanese bombing of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour on the 7th December 1941 and the defeat of British and Commonwealth forces at the Fall of Singapore on the 15th February 1942.

The captain of the *Atlantis*, Bernhard Rogge was later awarded a Japanese Katana sword by Emperor Hirohito on the 27th April 1943 for his services to the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Empire of Japan along with the chief commander of the *Luftwaffe*, Hermann Göring, and the commander of the Wehrmacht *Afrika Korps*, Erwin Rommel.