November 1941, I was serving aboard USS Omaha CL-4,
a light cruiser. While heading to Recife to refuel, we spotted a ship
flying the American flag. Upon orders to stop, the vessel tried to
escape. A shot across the bow caused her to reverse engines and come to a
stop. When asked where his ship was built, the reply from the Captain of
the suspicious ship named a city in Florida. Since this was obviously false, a
boarding party of gunners mates was assembled. I was carrying a rifle, a 45 caliber pistol
and a navy knife. The ship proved to be the German blockade-runner,
Odenwald. As we prepared to board her, we discovered the ship was
being scuttled and our Captain quickly sent a damage control party aboard to
prevent it sinking. They were successful and we escorted the Odenwald
into San Juan.
Note... see the story below to identify the
first German POW
In 1944 we were patrolling the neutrality zone in the South
Atlantic. Working with destroyers Jouett and Somers, we sank the
German blockade runners, Burgenland, Rio Grande, and Weserland, as they were
carrying cargo from Japan to Europe. Their holds were filled with rubber
tires. I can remember seeing tires all the
way to the horizon. Thousands of them.*
*The sinkings and capture are documented in a newspaper
clip dated Feb 4 (year not given but an Internet story on Omaha give the years
as 1944) which Ernie has saved. See the story
On 6 November 1941, USS Omaha CL-4 took the German blockade-runner Odenwald
as a prize off the coast of Brazil. After months of looking for German
commerce raiders in the neutrality zone, Omaha and Somers were enroute to Recife
for fuel when they encountered a darkened ship flying the American flag.
Suspicious, the Omaha sent a boarding party by boat. Odenwald's crew
attempted to scuttle her, but the damage from the scuttling attempt was
controlled by men from Omaha, and with a prize crew in control, she was escorted
to San Juan.
ODENWALD Radioman
I enjoyed reviewing your web page. One related item to your listing of the
November 6, 1941 capture of the German freighter ODENWALD.
An interesting footnote is a summary conclusion reached in a report of the
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. They concluded that one of the 45
OLDENWALD crewmen captured was actually an active duty member of the German
Navy. As such Helmut Ruge was proclaimed as the "first German prisoner of
war captured by the United States" in a classified Navy report published
March 12, 1942 and since declassified by the National Archives.
Helmut Claus Hinrich Ruge, 24 years old, was serving as the 2nd Radio
Operator when the ODENWALD was captured by the USS OMAHA CL-4 and USS SOMERS
DD-381. It
was later discovered that Ruge had been one of the crew of the German pocket
battleship ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE which was scuttled off Montevideo on December 17,
1939. He was able to make his way from Argentina to Chile and then, in the
summer of 1941, to Japan. He had worked briefly in the German Embassy radio
station in Tokyo when he was ordered to return to Germany on the ODENWALD. The
ODENWALD left Yokohama, JAPAN on August 21 and began its attempt to reach
France with materials for the German war effort. They had reached the South
Atlantic and were near the equator when stopped on November 6. Mike Nash
