THE ALCANTARA

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 28, 1 August 1940, Page 12

THE ALCANTARA

A TRAGIC PARALLEL

NAME-SHIP'S BATTLE IN 1916

SUNK BY GERMANS

Referring to the engagement between the Alcantara and a German raider in the South Atlantic, reported today, a United Press Association' cable message from London, recalls that an armed . merchantman, ■ also named Alcantara, played a very similar role in the Great War, while engaged on the northern patrol. On February 29, 1916, she met and fought a German disguised raider, the Greif.

The cable message states that the Alcantara sank the Greif and then foundered.

A different account of the battle is, however, given in reports published, some weeks after the battle, in "The Times."

According to these reports,- the British armed merchant cruiser Alcantara, commanded by Captain T. E. Wardle, R.N.,'encountered the German commerce raider Greif in the North Sea on February 29, 1916. The Alcantara was one of three ships recently built by Harland and Wolff for the Royal • Mail Company's South American trade, having sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage in June, 1914. She was of 15,381 tons, with five decks, and was driven by a combination of reciprocating and turbine ' engines. The Greif, which ;. had been-named after an old gunboat, was armed with two 7in guns, six 4in;guns, and two torpedo tubes. She-had left Wilhelmshaven early in the previous February, according to the Admiralty account, and was disguised as a Norwegian ship, appearing variously with from one to three funnels.

The Alcantara signalled her from 800 yards away and said that she was sending a boarding party. The Greif then revealed herself, and fired three torpedoes, the second and third of which struck the Alcantara, which had only ten minutes in which to attack the raider. In that time the Alcantara's guns raked the German ship,, then the British vessel heeled over and sank. The torpedoes had hit her because previously a shell had damaged the steering gear and it was impossible for her to manoeuvre. After the Alcantara had been hit, one of her consorts, the Andes, arrived to take up the fight, and had already beaten the German ship when a British light cruiser also arrived, and from a great distance began shelling the Greif. -.The German ship took fire fore and aft, and soon she exploded. It was thought that she had a cargo of mines and that this caused the blast.

The Germans, then as now, refused to admit the truth1 of the British version, and said the Greif had blown herself up after fighting, three British cruisers and <a destroyer. Five.German officers and 115 men were picked up out of a total complement - believed to have been over" 300. The British losses were five officers arid 69 men-