In September 1917, six months before Cornelius Heintz began overhauling the tired schooner, an eminent person booked passage on the Alexander Agassiz for a trip from Mazatlán to Manzanillo—Fritz Unger, managing partner of Melchers Sucs and German consul. Although it would later be prohibited for American vessels to carry German passengers between foreign ports under the revised statutes of the Trading with the Enemy Act, at the time, there was no law regarding who could travel as a passenger aboard an American boat. It is unclear why Unger made the journey on the Agassiz rather than on one of Melchers’ own coastal steamers. He said nothing about the war during the trip, but passed the time in small talk with Maude about common topics of the day, observing how the schooner handled on the open ocean and enjoying the cruise.
In the months that followed, Melchers Sucesores began to discreetly gather information about the Agassiz. The American trader H. A. Macintosh recalled, “Melchers Sucs, during my presence in Mazatlán, were repeatedly making inquiries of me as to the speed of the Alexander Agassiz, her seaworthiness, etc. I had very little use for them however, and avoided the matter wherever possible.”
The reason for the consul’s interest in the American schooner became clear to Cornelius Heintz one day in early February 1918, when he received word that Unger wanted to see him. He would later recall the meeting with Unger in exacting detail.
Heintz arrived promptly at the consul’s office and found him seated comfortably in his leather-backed office chair, deep in conversation with a man bearing the unmistakable look of a seafarer. Unger ushered Heintz into his office and closed the door behind them, then introduced him to Fritz Bauman, a captain of one of the interned German merchant ships at Santa Rosalía, and a reserve officer in the German navy. Bauman had spent much of his life at sea, including service aboard ships of the Matson Navigation Company, running passengers and freight between San Francisco and Honolulu. When America joined the war, Bauman was briefly interned as an enemy alien at Angel Island, an Ellis Island–like immigration station located in San Francisco Bay, before being deported to Mexico.
The three men shared a common heritage and the atmosphere at the meeting was cordial. Although Heintz was not a native German, he was the son of a German father and had deserted America rather than fight his German cousins. He was accepted as a true German, and even held membership in the German club. The war overseas was going well for Germany and the men’s hearts were high. Russia had been defeated, and even now German divisions from the Eastern Front were being transferred to France for the final drive that would end the conflict in victory for the Fatherland.
Unger earnestly advised the men that he had called them together to discuss a most important matter, and swore them to secrecy, before revealing the reason for their summons. A German commerce raider was going to be launched from Mazatlán to prey on Allied shipping in the Pacific; a small boat capable of capturing an unsuspecting steamer for use in seizing and sinking additional Allied ships. The vessel that was going to be appropriated for this purpose was the American schooner Alexander Agassiz.
The plan was quite simple.
It was common knowledge that Miss Lochrane’s shipping business was on the verge of collapse; her fortunes had declined to the extent that she was now living on the boat. Captain Bauman was to induce Miss Lochrane to take the Agassiz to sea by telling her enchanting stories of how the schooner could earn a huge profit trading between islands in the South Seas. He would then offer his services to navigate the boat to that destination at no expense, proposing that once there, she could make whatever arrangements she cared to in pursuing the riches of the South Seas trade. Unger had learned that the Agassiz was in disrepair after months of continuous operation without maintenance. As part of the scheme, Heintz would offer his services as a marine engineer to Miss Lochrane and return the schooner to a level of seaworthiness that would allow it to make an extended voyage at sea.
The German consul paused, and looked at the men gravely.
Shortly before departure, Bauman would board the vessel with a handpicked crew of German sailors. When they reached the open ocean, well clear of the mainland, Bauman’s men would seize the Alexander Agassiz and embark on the raiding expedition. Captain Bauman would be in overall command of the vessel, which would carry a commission issued on the authority of the German government validating its use as a raider. They were to seize all ships and cargos that Bauman deemed advisable, destroy what Allied commerce they could, and then proceed on to Germany.
The crew would “get rid of Miss Lochrane at the earliest opportunity.”
The Alexander Agassiz would be suitably equipped for the expedition. Bauman was to travel to the port of Santa Rosalía in Baja California, and obtain the necessary charts and navigational instruments from the German square-rigged schooners interned there. They would also provide him with the heavy machine guns and ammunition needed to arm the Agassiz. The German crew would carry Winchester rifles from Melchers’ firearms inventory and their own personal side arms. The schooner would have a Kaiserliche Marine battle flag to be deployed after reaching the high seas.
In addition to the honor that they would gain from their service to the Fatherland, Bauman and Heintz would be partners in the venture, awarded a percentage of the value of all ships sunk, destroyed, or captured. The monetary reward would be paid to them when they reached Germany. As a sign of good faith (and likely to provide deniability for Melchers Sucs in the event of capture), Heintz was expected to put $300 in American gold into the project for supplies and materials to repair the schooner. In return, he would receive 5 percent of the value of the vessels destroyed or captured as his share. Unger advised Bauman that he would speak to him privately with regard to the prize percentage he would be paid.
When he had completed his briefing, Unger leaned forward expectantly. Would they agree to participate in the historic mission? Both men responded with enthusiasm and immediately agreed to their part in the operation. It was an excellent plan, certain to succeed by its very unlikelihood—no one would conceive of an American schooner turning German commerce raider. After discussing a few final details, the course of action was settled, and they agreed to meet again in four weeks’ time.
The proposal from the two Norwegians, Mr. Bauman and Mr. Madden, almost sounded too good to be true. Maude had met them in the German biergarten (beer garden). After a few drinks, the swarthy Mr. Bauman, a navigator with the Matson Line, told her of a tremendous opportunity that existed for coastal trading vessels like the Alexander Agassiz in the tropical waters of the South Seas. He explained that at present, there was no competition for the interisland trading business, and unlike the situation in Mexico, no government regulations or port charges. Bauman was eager to get to the islands himself, and so certain of the prospects for easy money in the South Seas that he offered to navigate the Agassiz there at no charge, leaving Maude to cash in on the plentiful trading opportunities. His associate, Mr. Madden, a ruddy-faced merchant seaman with light brown hair, solemnly confirmed Bauman’s story, advising Maude that he knew the South Seas well and had seen the riches to be made with his own eyes.
Madden was, in fact, a German national named Arthur Martens. Born in the port city of Lübeck, the thirty-six-year-old Martens had been schooled in the German merchant marine, and served on both German and English merchant vessels. A qualified ordinary seaman, Martens could “reef off the gear,” handle rigging, and perform any other tasks required on a sailing ship. In 1914, Martens had found himself stranded in the United States, with no means of returning to Germany through the British blockade. At the time, he was a mate on board an oil tanker called the Maverick that was being detained in San Francisco Bay by U.S. authorities, and which would later be used in a German plot to smuggle arms for a Hindu uprising in British-ruled India. In 1916, Martens left for Mexico, and was reported to have offered his services to General Calles in the event of war between the United States and Mexico, but the offer was not accepted. Bauman recruited the itinerant seaman in Hermosillo to serve as first mate on the Agassiz expedition.
By the time their discussion in the biergarten had ended, Maude was convinced that the two Norwegians knew what they were talking about. Running the Alexander Agassiz between islands in the South Seas could be the answer to all her problems. The boat’s American registry would cease to be an issue, and with port charges eliminated and profit margins increased, she would be able to pay off the University of California and Macintosh in no time. It was a good thing that Bauman and Madden held neutral Norwegian passports. The blacklist had forced her to reject a score of business offers from Germans and pro-Germans whose names appeared on the list. At the insistence of the American consul, she had just turned down the opportunity to carry a boatload of Japanese to a port near the Mexican border because it would have violated U.S. immigration laws. Now everyone who booked passage on an American boat between foreign ports had to show their passports—even Mexicans. This latest operating handicap would also be removed in the distant South Seas.
Maude happily accepted Mr. Bauman’s offer and sealed the deal with a handshake. As soon as the Alexander Agassiz was properly overhauled for the trip, she agreed to set sail with them for the South Seas.
The port city of Santa Rosalía is located on the eastern side of the arid Baja California peninsula. It was founded as a copper mining community in 1884 by Compañía del Boleo, a French mining concern, to support efforts to exploit the rich copper deposits found in the area. Processing the ore extracted from the mines required an ample supply of coke for smelting, and in the prewar days, this was delivered to Santa Rosalía on a regular basis from Germany by a fleet of four-masted, square-rigged schooners. The ships had been built in British shipyards at the end of the nineteenth century, and sold to German shipping companies when the opening of the Panama Canal made their use in the tramping trade unprofitable for their English owners. Fourteen of these relics from the bygone age of sail continued to travel a circuitous route from Hamburg to Santa Rosalía and back, delivering coke for the Boleo smelter and returning with a cargo of copper for the continent, until the world war broke out in Europe.
The German-registered schooners were immediately interned in the port of Santa Rosalía. It was a temporary measure, since the war was only expected to last a few months, but as months turned to years, the hulls of the sailing ships rocking at anchor gradually became covered with barnacles until it was impossible to sail them. Their restless German crews passed the time touching up peeling paint, unfurling and sunning the sails, and scraping what barnacles they could from the ships’ bottoms, while dreaming of the day when they would return to Germany.
Having served as the captain of one of the square-riggers at Santa Rosalía, Bauman knew the officers and men of the small fleet very well. Some would have extra navigational instruments of the type needed to traverse the Pacific and, as auxiliaries of the German navy in time of war, he also knew that some of the ships carried a machine gun in their holds.
The German merchant captain left for Santa Rosalía in mid-February 1918 and returned to Mazatlán three weeks later with a trove of items for the raiding expedition, including a sextant, a chronograph, a compass, and nautical charts covering both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Of even greater significance, Bauman was able to pry loose a German heavy machine gun together with its mount and a single box of belted ammunition. These items were discreetly, transported to the German consular office at Melchers Sucesores, where they were hidden away for use in the coming operation.
In the saltwater estuary near Mazatlán harbor, repair work was nearing completion on the Alexander Agassiz. Heintz had been able to obtain replacement parts for the engines, which were now running reliably, and had gone over the boat in exacting detail, even rebuilding the boat’s lavatory. The final task, repairing the damage that had been inflicted on the boat’s sails during the failed attempt to carry corn to Manzanillo for Señor Meistiero was now proceeding well under the experienced hands of seaman Madden. For four straight days Madden “bent,” or retied, the lines to the schooner’s two foresails and its large main sail with the assistance of two Mexican laborers. The Agassiz had a respectable amount of rigging and it was slow and painstaking work, with Madden tying lengths of braided cord to the eyelets in each sail and threading or “reeving” the halyard lines through block and tackle. When he was finished, the sails were ready to be run, and the schooner was capable of going to sea once again.
Word soon arrived that Unger wanted to see them.
On the evening of March 12, 1918, after the Melchers Sucesores building had closed for the day and the last remaining workers had trudged wearily home, seven men entered and made their way to the office of managing partner Fritz Unger.
The crewmen that had been recruited to serve aboard the commerce raider Alexander Agassiz were similar in appearance and convictions. In addition to Captain Fritz Bauman, First Mate Arthur Martens aka “Madden,” and Chief Engineer Cornelius Heintz, the ship’s company would include Frank Volpert, Hendrik Koppalla, Richard Brandt, and Charles Boston. They were men who had been toughened by years on the road or on the sea, and with only a few pesos to their names, were awed by the rich furnishings surrounding them.
Frank Volpert was a thirty-one-year-old bricklayer from Hoppeke, Germany. He had been visiting relatives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when the outbreak of war stranded him in America. The lanky tradesman had traveled south to Monterrey, Mexico, and then made his way to Mazatlán, where his outspoken support for Germany in the conflict brought him to the attention of Bauman. Volpert was known to carry a revolver at all times.
Hendrik Koppalla was twenty-three years old, and a sailor by profession. In public he claimed to be a Dutchman from Amsterdam, but in private confided his true nationality to fellow Germans. Koppalla had been at sea since his mid-teens, much of the time spent serving on two-masted fishing boats in the North Sea. In October 1917, Koppalla was deported from Angel Island to Mexico as an “undesirable alien.” He had been recruited to look after the engines aboard the Alexander Agassiz.
Richard Brandt was a thirty-three-year-old lumber inspector from Mecklenberg, Germany, who was working as a rancher in California when America joined the war. A reservist in the German military, he had immediately fled to Mexico. Strongly pro-German in his sympathies, Brandt was approached in the German biergarten in Mazatlán to serve aboard the Agassiz.
Charles Boston was a twenty-seven-year-old general laborer from Mountain View, Missouri. An American citizen by birth, Boston registered for the draft at Bisbee, Arizona, in June 1917, and then left for Mexicali, Mexico, on a prospecting tour four months later. He was called to report for duty on March 1, 1918, but failed to return to the United States, and became, like Heintz, a draft “slacker.” He was hired by Heintz to do general work on the Alexander Agassiz in February 1918, and was later chosen to join the raiding expedition.
Unger rose from his desk and surveyed the men assembled before him. As they were now aware, he solemnly told them, in a few days’ time the Alexander Agassiz would sail from Mazatlán under the command of Captain Bauman on a mission of great importance to the Fatherland. Assisting him as second-in-command would be the ship’s first mate, Mr. Madden. Removing a sheet of paper from his desk, Unger read them the orders to Captain Bauman that he had signed as German consul in Mazatlán: “Captain Bauman is to go to sea as master of the schooner Alexander Agassiz. He is to commandeer the first ship that crosses his path that he deems suitable for use as an ocean-going commerce raider. After taking possession of this vessel, he is to destroy all commerce that he can, and then do everything in his power to return to Germany with his prize. Further, Captain Bauman has been entrusted with significant letters in cipher code that he is to hand-deliver to a representative of the German government.”
Unger instructed those in the group to raise their hands and swear an oath before him, as the German government’s official delegate in Mazatlán, of their allegiance to the German flag and their commitment to obey the commands of Captain Bauman in carrying out the orders that he had been issued. All the men complied and swore an oath of allegiance, except Charles Boston, the American slacker from Missouri, who would not swear allegiance to Germany, but agreed to participate in the mission.
Unger handed a packet of coded letters to Bauman, along with a commission letter authorizing the Alexander Agassiz to go to sea as a German commerce raider. No specific nationality was mentioned in the letter with regard to the ships that were to be captured and destroyed; every ship on the high seas was to be looked upon as an enemy ship under the orders issued.
Unger next handed Bauman a secret code written in the German language through which he would be able to decipher any messages or letters sent to him. Unger once again instructed the merchant captain to deliver the letters as soon as he reached port in Germany.
The consul informed the raider crew that the Alexander Agassiz would sail within the week. The overhaul of the schooner was now complete and she was ready for sea duty. Provisions would shortly be brought aboard the Agassiz from Melcher Sucs’ warehouse, along with enough fuel for five hundred miles of the journey—the sails would be the primary motive power for most of the voyage. Armaments would also be transferred to the ship at that time. Heintz saw a box of belted machine-gun ammunition in the office and casually examined the gleaming brass cartridges contained within. Behind the box of ammunition was a sealed crate that housed the heavy machine gun.
As the meeting drew to a close, Unger commended the men for their dedication to the German cause in the present war, and shook each of the crewmen’s hands as they exited the building and disappeared into the night.
A few miles from the German consul’s office, Maude Lochrane sat alone in her quarters on the Alexander Agassiz, still beached in the esterro (estuary), and composed a letter to Joseph Mesmer, her friend and mentor. The Los Angeles businessman had backed the purchase of the schooner with a $5,000 bond and then stood by her despite the overwhelming obstacles encountered, even lobbying congressmen on her behalf while trying to have the Agassiz’s registry legally changed to the Mexican flag. Now with a brighter outlook seemingly on the horizon, she penned Mesmer a quick note with the happy news that their troubles would soon be over.
Mazatlán, Mexico
Mr. Joseph Mesmer
Los Angeles, Cal.
Dear Mr. Mesmer,
Am writing both you and Mr. Sproule [assistant to the comptroller of the University of California] a line to tell you that I am getting things fixed up here . . . I know things will be satisfactory to all, and the U of C entirely satisfied and paid up entirely in the length of time they gave us from the first. I am fixing things so all debts can be satisfied. Two parties who were interested (in chartering the Alexander Agassiz) in December are now on the “Black List” & one is reputed to be “pro-G” [pro-German]. You can’t imagine what the “List” & restrictions mean to the people here as there are so many foreigners here especially Germans. Would have written 3 days ago but couldn’t tell you as many things were not quite certain yet.
Best wishes to you all,
Yours truly,
Maude Lochrane
By now, Maude’s financial situation had become the subject of common gossip throughout Mazatlán. Even visiting American businessmen were aware of her plight. She was pointed out to Gustaf Danielson, secretary and treasurer of the Cooper, Coate and Casey Wholesale Dry Goods Company of Los Angeles as “a destitute woman and a sad victim of circumstance.” Out of sympathy for her impoverished state, the businessman proposed to W. E. Chapman, the American consul at Mazatlán, that they start a fund for her to subsist on. Danielson told Chapman that he would agree to put in $10 if the consul would do likewise.
But Maude’s situation was not news to Chapman.
He had already been watching Maude Lochrane and the Alexander Agassiz for quite some time.