Fireman James Summers was involved in two major events of the Second World War, his ship was sunk by the German Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee and he was being held as a prisoner the sequel event, the freeing of prisoners by the Royal Navy from the Graf Spee’s supply ship in Norwegian territorial waters, known as the ‘Altmark Incident’.
Perth man, James Summers was onboard the Union Castle Line, SS Tairoa, when it was attacked on Sunday 3 December 1939 and sunk by the German Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee. The story of how the Graf Spee was defeated was told in the 1956 movie, The Battle of the River Plate (also called the Pursuit of the Graf Spee). Seven of crew of the SS Tairoa were onboard the Graf Spee during the great naval battle that took place in the South Atlantic off the coast of Uruguay. During the battle, all the other Tairoa seamen, including James Summers were on board the oil tanker and supply ship Altmark.
James Summers was the youngest of four sons of Mr and Mrs Robert Summers who at the time were living in retirement in Elgin. James in 1940 was thirty-six years of age and had spent half his life at sea. After leaving school he was employed in the North British Glass Works, 17 St. Catherine’s Road, Perth, before joining the Royal Navy when he was eighteen. James served as chief stoker with the Royal Navy for twelve years and left to join the Merchant Navy. His father served throughout World War One coming home to enter the service of John Campbell Ltd., Fues Road, Perth as a gardener-chauffeur, he retired in 1938. John Campbell Ltd., Aerated Water Works was located where the Post Office Sorting Office is nowadays in Fues Road.
In a scene from the movie, Captain Dove (Bernard Lee) of the SS Africa Shell asks the newly arrived prisoners, the British seamen who have just come on board the Admiral Graf Spee from the Altmark, who they are?
She’s moving, boys!
Yes, yes. She’s under way.
– Well, who are you all?
– Let’s have a muster.
– Huntsman.
– Newton Beech.
– Ashlea.
– Tairoa.
– Trevanion.
All present and correct.
Africa Shell.
Who’s next?
You may remember seeing Anthony Newley, playing SS Tairoa’s radio operator, he was lying injured on a table near the door and behind him was Nigel Stock who played the SS Tairoa’s Chief Officer. Standing beside them is a seaman wearing a blue jumper with Tairoa written in white across the front.
Kapitän zur See, Hans Langsdorff commanding the “Panzerschiff” Deutschland-class cruiser Admiral Graf Spee sailed from Wilhelmshaven, Germany on 21 August 1939 bound for the South Atlantic ocean. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler first waited to see what the allied reaction was to Germany invading Poland. Whether they would negotiate a peace settlement or not. The Admiral Graf Spee rendezvoused with her supply ship, Altmark southwest of the Canary islands in the Cape Verdi area in September 1939, but did not receive her orders to begin commerce raiding until 26 September 1939.
Graf Spee’s first victim was the steamship SS Clement which was sunk on 30 September 1939 off the east coast of Pernambuco, Brazil (Recife). A “RRR” radio transmission (I am under attack by a raider”) was sent by the SS Clement. Another transmission was intercepted by the British Admiralty from the Graf Spee who used her sister ship, the Admiral Scheer’s call sign as a ruse. This transmission led to the admiralty issuing notices that ‘at least’ one German surface raider was operating in the South Atlantic.
The British Admiralty formed eight groups to hunt down the Admiral Graf Spee. This included three British aircraft carriers, HMS Hermes, Eagle, and Ark Royal along with the French aircraft carrier Béarn, two French battleships, Dunkerque and Strasbourg along with 16 Royal Navy cruisers and the battleship, HMS Renown. (The Béarn remained in Brest harbour.)
The Graf Spee captured the Newton Beech on 5 October 1939 and two days later it was the turn of the Ashlea. The Newton Beech was used by Langsdorff to house prisoners, but it was too slow to keep up, the prisoners were transferred to the Graf Spee, and the Newton Beech was sunk on 8 October 1939. Next to be sunk was the SS Doric Star on 2 December 1939 at 5.18am off Southwest Africa.
The following morning at 05.18 am using its FMG G(gO) “Seetakt” Radar (shipborne radar), the Graf Spee located the SS Tairoa at five nautical miles distance. The SS Tairoa was enroute from Brisbane to London laden with meat, wool, and other general cargo and under the command of Captain William Starr.
Kapitän Langsdorff approached the Tairoa at maximum speed head on and used the deception tactic of flying the French Ensign to confuse his quarry. The Graf Spee was also disguised by the use of an additional funnel and a main turret. When the Graf Spee was about two nautical miles from the Tairoa, a flag signal was given stating “I am coming to board you” followed by at one nautical mile, “Stop wireless or I will open fire”.
The Tairoa did not stop transmitting the R-R-R signal (“I am being attacked by a raider”) so the Graf Spee opened fire with its secondary armament on the mastheads of the Tairoa, destroying the wireless aerials. Despite this the radio operator of the Tairoa was able to piece together a rudimentary wireless set and continued to transmit, this resulted in a further salvo being fired by the Graf Spee at the Tairoa.
Kapitän Langsdorff sent a boarding party to Tairoa taking the all the Tairoa crew, including three who were injured by shrapnel over to the Graf Spee. The Graf Spee then sunk the Tairoa with its secondary guns followed by a torpedo which stuck amidships. The Tairoa sank about 648 nautical miles southeast of St. Helena.
The Graf Spee then rendezvoused with the Altmark on 6 December 1939 and transferred the majority of the Tairoa’s and Doric Star’s crew including the Captain Starr of the Tairoa. Seven of the Tairoa’s crew remained onboard the Graf Spee.
At 05.30am on 13 December 1939, lookouts on the Graf Spee spotted a pair of masts. Kapitän Langsdorff wrongly assumed that this was a destroyer escort for a convoy that had been mentioned in documents seized from the Tairoa. At 05.52am they identified the York-class heavy cruiser HMS Exeter accompanied by a pair of smaller warships, again thought to be destroyers but were quickly identified as two Leander-class light cruisers of Force G, the South American Cruiser Squadron, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles. Langsdorff decided not to flee and ordered his ship to close at maximum speed.
As a result of the encounter with the Exeter, Ajax and Achilles during the Battle of the River Plate, the Graf Spee entered Montevideo in neutral Uruguay for repairs. The captured allied seaman onboard, 6 captains, 9 chief engineers, 25 officers, and 21 seamen were released. Langsdorff scuttled the Graf Spee on 17 December 1919 in the River Plate estuary. Langsdorff committed suicide in a Buenos Aires hotel on 20 December 1939
James Summers, along with 298 other seamen were still onboard the Altmark. Conditions were not great for the prisoners; it was described as a floating concentration camp and hell ship. On 6 August 1939, before the outbreak of war, the Altmark had sailed through the English Channel being seen from Dover at about 02.00pm. The Altmark was on its way to Port Arthur, Texas, USA in the Gulf of Mexico arriving on Sunday 3 September 1939. At Port Arthur the Altmark took on a full cargo of diesel oil and proceeded out into the Atlantic to rendezvous with the Graf Spee. To deceive Captain Heinrich Dau ordered that the Altmark disguise its nationality as being Norwegian and from Oslo, it also was repainted a new light-yellow colour.
The Altmark, had four nine-cylinder M.A.N. diesel engines, giving 21,400 h.p., and was capable of 21.1 knots, which was fast for a vessel of 11,000 tons gross, 178 metre in length, a 22-metre beam, loading capacity of 14,000 tons, range of 23,200 km at 15 kn and a crew complement of between 94 and 208.
Altmark did not attempt to return to German for a few weeks despite supplies running low, remaining in the Atlantic ocean for a few weeks. On 14 February 1940 Altmark was discovered in Norwegian territorial waters by three Lockheed Hudson aircraft from RAF Thornaby. She had sailed round the north of Scotland then proceeded south through Norwegian territorial waters hoping that she would not be attacked which would be a breach of Norwegian neutrality.
During the winter months of January to March when the Baltic Sea froze in the Gulf of Bothnia, German iron-ore traffic came mainly from Sweden via the Norwegian port of Narvik, legitimately passing along the Norwegian littoral.
The British regarded the Altmark as a prison ship, one that had deliberately sailed through neutral waters without the permission of the Norwegian government to transport prisoners. The Altmark claimed to the Norwegians that there were none onboard. The diplomatic question of whether the Altmark as the Haque Conventions stood in 1940 could legitimately seek immunity from attack in neutral waters by wildly varying its course to reach them was raised as an issue by the British government and is still unresolved to this day. Article 10 provides that: “The neutrality of a Power is not affected by the mere passage through its territorial waters of warships or prizes belonging to belligerents.”
On the insistence of the British, the Royal Norwegian Navy investigated the claims that there were prisoners onboard the Altmark, three times on 15 February 1940. Altmark was boarded by officers from the torpedo boat HNoMS Trygg, off Linesøya, then by officers from the torpedo boat HNoMS Snøgg in the Sognefjord, and finally personally by Admiral Carsten Tank-Nielsen and naval personnel from the destroyer HNoMS Garm in the Hjeltefjord. In each instance, those who boarded the ship carried out only cursory searches and took the Germans word that the vessel was conducting purely commercial business. The hold of the ship where the prisoners were kept was not inspected or was the noise of the prisoners shouting heard, and the ship was allowed to continue its way. Following the third boarding the Altmark was escorted southwards by the torpedo boats HNoMS Skarv and HNoMS Kjell and the guard boat HNoMS Firern.
Three British destroyers led by HMS Cossack were by now in close pursuit of the Altmark. Altmark was again spotted by British aircraft from RAF Thornaby off Egersund and was intercepted by HMS Cossack. The Altmark sought refuge in the narrow 3km long Jøssingfjord, the Cossack entered the fjord the next day. The Norwegian naval escorts tried to block initial attempts to board the Altmark, even aiming their torpedo tubes at the Cossack. Captain of HMS Cossack, Phillip Vian asked the admiralty for instructions and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill issued the following orders:
“Unless Norwegian torpedo-boat undertakes to convoy Altmark to Bergen with a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard on board, and a joint escort, you should board Altmark, liberate the prisoners, and take possession of the ship pending further instructions. If Norwegian torpedo-boat interferes, you should warn her to stand off. If she fires upon you, you should not reply unless attack is serious, in which case you should defend yourself, using no more force than is necessary, and ceasing fire when she desists. Suggest to Norwegian destroyer that honour is served by submitting to superior force.”
The Norwegian naval forces refused to take part in a joint escort. Captain Vian stated that they intended to board the Altmark and invited the Norwegians to take part. During the skirmish Altmark ran aground on rocks, and a Royal Navy boarding party went onboard at 22.20pm on 16 February 1940. After hand to hand fighting the Altmark’s crew was overwhelmed, and they went down into the ships hold to release the British prisoners.
The first the prisoners knew of the operation was when they heard the shout from the boarding party “any Englishmen here?”. When the prisoners shouted back “yes! We are all British!”, the response was “well, the Navy’s here!”, to which they cheered.
Seven German sailors were killed and eleven wounded (six gravely) during the fighting. The seven of the Altmark crew killed were shot in an attempted escape across the ice. The official explanation later given by the Norwegian government was that according to international treaty, a neutral country was not obliged to resist a vastly-superior force.
From Jøssingfjord, the Cossack along with the destroyers HMS Nubian, Sikh, Intrepid and Ivanhoe sailed to Leith, Scotland where a tumultuous welcome awaited all of them. HMS Arethusa was also part of the search party for the Altmark.
Research: Ken Bruce
Notes:
The Altmark Incident is often claimed to be the last Royal Navy action with cutlasses.
The phrase “the Navy’s here” became well known, it was used as the title of a book about the incident and was the name of a popular song of the time saluting the Royal Navy. It became a popular Royal navy rallying cry during the war years. The Altmark boarding action was compared it to that of Drake, Nelson, Beatty and Fisher.
On the evening of 21 March 1940, the Royal navy submarine HMS Ursula sank the German iron ore ship Hedderheim, eight miles off the coast of Denmark. The Hedderheim was enroute from Narvik. Several other ships were sunk over the next few days. On Monday 8 April 1940 the Norwegian authorities were told of the British intention to mine the Skagerrak, the strait between Norway and Denmark. German preparations to protect their iron ore shipments had been well under way by this time, Hitler had decided back on 14 December 1939 to invade Norway after discussions took place between the Kriegsmarine Oberkommando der Marine (Chief of the German Imperial Naval High Command), Admiral Erich Raeder and Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi collaborator. On February 17, at his Fuehrer Field H.Q., Hitler received Grand Admiral Raeder in the presence of Commander Putkammer, his naval liaison officer, and ordered him to proceed with ” Weseruebung” the code-word for staff plans for the German attack on Norway The Germans invaded Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940.
The funeral took place of the Altmark dead at the tiny cemetery of Sokndal, above the fjord, with coffins draped with swastika flags, it was turned into a spectacular Nazi propaganda demonstration.
James Summers is recorded on the Absent Voters List of the Perth Electoral Register,1924 as residing at 158 High Street, occupation Stoker 2, HMS Weymouth. Also registered at 158 High Street was Alexander Summers, 2745928, Private Black Watch.
James Summers was registered on the Electoral Register of 1934 as residing at 23 Carpenter Street. Also registered were Charles and Alexander Summers. His sister Mrs William Downey who also lived in Carpenter Street heard news of his exploits on Saturday 17 February 1940. A Jenny Summers was registered at 23 Carpenter Street in 1930. A son of the brother of James Summers, Peter Summers served on-board HMS Malaya during WW2.
Just after the start of WW2 the Graf Spee encountered the British heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland. On 11 September 1939, the Graf Spee was still transferring supplies from the Altmark when her Arado floatplane spotted HMS Cumberland approaching. Langsdorff ordered both vessels to depart at high speed and avoid contact with the British cruiser.
North British Glass Works was known as Monax Glass from 1992. ‘Monax’ was a brand of glass developed after 1914.
The Altmark was renamed Uckermark on 6 August 1940, eventually being sunk scrapped in Yokohama harbour, Japan due to an explosion which led to fire which engulfed the ship. Nearby ships, Thor and Nakin were also destroyed.
Public domain