Long columns of infantry in field-gray uniforms extended as far as the eye could see, as sixty-two German divisions marched toward the front. The final German offensive in France, expected to force a tremendous breakthrough and end the war in victory for the Fatherland, was about to begin. On March 15, the same day that the USS Vicksburg arrived in Mazatlán, the ammunition dumps had been completed for the coming assault, code-named Operation Michael. Enormous stockpiles of artillery shells—over 3.2 million rounds would be fired on British troops during the first day of the battle—the greatest bombardment in history up to that time, were in position near the German guns. German shock troops were now moving into forward trench positions along the fifty-mile salient that would be the focal point of the attack, to begin a five-day wait for the offensive to begin.
Six thousand miles way, Consul Unger was growing increasingly anxious about the Alexander Agassiz expedition. From the general information on the imminent German offensive that had been released to the world press, it was clear to the German officials in Mexico that the war might be over in a very short time. If the raider did not sail now, it might never sail at all. But with Mazatlán harbor under the constant watch of the U.S. Navy, the mission would be in jeopardy from the start.
Fearful that the schooner might be searched by sailors from the Vicksburg, Unger ordered that the machine gun, ammunition, and navigational items be removed from the schooner and brought ashore. As long as the Vicksburg remained anchored outside the harbor, it would be impossible to proceed any further. But he had a simple solution for addressing that problem.
On the morning of March 16, W. E. Chapman received a visit from the Mexican captain of the port, Julio Vázquez Schiaffino, who presented him with a written notice demanding that the American warship, USS Vicksburg, leave the port of Mazatlán immediately. According to the provisions of the Hague Convention, foreign warships could not remain in the territorial waters of any neutral country longer than twenty-four hours, after which they must otherwise be disarmed. Chapman relayed the message to the Vicksburg. To avoid friction with the local authorities, Lieutenant Reordan raised anchor and the Vicksburg got under way, steaming out beyond the three-mile limit to patrol offshore.
Reordan sent a wireless message to his divisional commander at the Pacific Fleet:
From: Vicksburg.
March 16, 1918
To : Commander, Division Two.
An American spy who is a member of the crew of the raider here reports that the officers of the raider talked concerning the outfitting of other vessels at Guaymas and Salina Cruz. Other than this nothing further is known. The Raider here is officered by men from the interned German vessels at Santa Rosalía and the navigational instruments are from the same source. They will probably attempt an escape tomorrow, as they appear to be desperate. Ample evidence is at hand justifying their capture at sea. Intense pro-Germanism is shown by local authorities here, who have notified the VICKSBURG to leave port at the expiration of her twenty-four hours. Have procured a fast motorboat to assist and will patrol outside. We have the situation well in hand. Malicious interference with our radio is being carried on by the radio station at Mazatlán.
Despite the confident tone of Reordan’s dispatch, his superiors at the Pacific fleet were uneasy about the chance of capturing the Alexander Agassiz if it reached the open water. Unlike a freighter or passenger liner bellowing plumes of coal smoke and displaying a prominent outline on the horizon, a small coastal schooner like the Agassiz, powered by an internal combustion engine and sails, would be very hard to spot. If the raider managed to slip out of Mazatlán harbor under conditions of poor visibility, and was able to maintain a speed of 12 knots or more, it could prove near impossible for the fleet to track her down across the broad Pacific Ocean.
Reordan’s commander at the Pacific Fleet relayed a cautionary wireless message to U.S. Naval Operations:
From: Commander, Division Two.
To : Operations.
Have given orders Brutus, Rainier, Vicksburg, Submarine Chaser 302 near Mazatlán. If the Agassiz escapes at night unobserved and makes a speed of 12 knots, the [gunboat] Yorktown is the only ship in this force that is able to overtake her. 11 knots is reported to be the maximum speed of the Submarine Chaser 302
Shortly after the Vicksburg steamed out of view, Heintz received word from Consul Unger that he was to supervise the loading of stores for the raiding mission aboard the Alexander Agassiz and ensure that they were brought on board without exciting suspicion. Horse-drawn delivery wagons from Melchers Sucesores arrived at the location where the Agassiz was beached in the estuary to deliver the supplies that Bauman and Madden had deemed necessary for the voyage. Under Heintz’s diligent supervision, heavy wooden boxes and burlap bags were silently offloaded and manhandled across the sandy terrain onto the dormant craft. Over a ton of provisions were soon taken aboard the schooner, enough to feed the raider crew for ninety days, along with enough fuel for the boat to cruise a radius of five hundred miles—as much as would be needed, since sail power would be employed for most of the journey. The stores included fifty-pound sacks of wheat flour, potatoes, rice, and beans, thirty-eight cases of distillate (two five-gallon cans per case), and over three hundred pounds of wood for the cook stove. After the supplies and fuel had been evenly stowed in the cargo hold below, the navigational instruments and flags were taken on board once again.
The Agassiz was now fully loaded, ready to sail at a moment’s notice, but the conspirators remained in a quandary. Should they cast the die and head out of port at the risk of being captured if the American gunboat was still lurking offshore, or should they abandon the effort altogether?
On the night of March 16, a compromise was reached. Mate Madden announced that he was game to take a chance and make a dash out of the harbor the following morning at daybreak. A new plan was formulated in which Bauman, who had grown wary of the project, was to canoe out to Venados Island—the farthest island on the northward side of the outer harbor, where he would wait with the machine gun, ammunition, and an additional German crew member. The Agassiz would then clear the port with a Mexican pilot at the helm as a camouflage, along with Maude, Madden, Heintz, the remaining members of the raider crew, and several Mexican “passengers” carried as a blind. As soon as the Agassiz was safely clear of the harbor, they would proceed to Venados, where Bauman would canoe out to join them with the extra deckhand, the machine gun, and ammunition. The Mexicans would return to the mainland in the canoe, and the Alexander Agassiz could then embark on her new career as a raider for the Fatherland. Under this arrangement, if the schooner was stopped by an American warship after leaving Mexican waters and boarded, nothing incriminating would be found. If they were not intercepted, they could cruise to Venados and proceed according to plan. No matter what transpired, their bet would be covered.
March 17, 1918, dawned as a beautiful day in Mazatlán, a bright orange sun rising in a clear blue sky. The sea was calm and the currents were light, with a gentle breeze blowing out of the east.
The crew came aboard the Alexander Agassiz early, planning to depart the port at 7:00 a.m., but were delayed due to the low tide and a protracted wait to receive final instructions from Unger for contacting Captain Bauman on Venados. The ship’s roster included Maude Lochrane, Cornelius Heintz and his wife, Madden, Brandt, Volpert, Koppalla, Boston, the Mexican pilot, and five Mexican passengers. To enable the schooner to exit the harbor without an official clearance, Maude had obtained permission from the captain of the port to take the boat out on a trial run to test her engines. Cornelius Heintz had obtained a similar permission from W. E. Chapman.
By 11:00 a.m., the tide had risen in the esterro, and after Madden received the awaited instructions from the German consul, Heintz turned the engines over and the pilot reversed the Agassiz off the tidal flat that had served as her dry dock. The motors throbbed steadily louder as he gradually increased power, and the schooner cruised across the smooth water of the estuary into the harbor. The pilot came from a Mexican gunboat anchored in the harbor and was experienced at running a boat through the hazardous channel, skillfully steering the schooner left and right to avoid obstacles and sunken shoals. In the outer harbor, they passed several small islands with Mexican government buildings on them, watched the Faro lighthouse pass by on the mountainous islet to their right, and at a leisurely 3–4 knots, set course toward the Northwest and Venados Island.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
Standing on the starboard side of the afterdeck, Richard Brandt pointed out various landmarks on the coast to Mrs. Heintz. As the speed of the schooner increased to 6 knots, Brandt called to Maude Lochrane, “The boat is going pretty fast.”
“It can go a whole lot faster,” she replied, while heading to the galley to prepare lunch for two of the sailors who would be handling the sails.
As they proceeded into the open ocean, the remaining crew members were situated in various locations around the schooner. Madden stood amidships leaning against the three-foot coaming that lined the inner deck of the Agassiz, intently scanning the horizon. Heintz was on deck also, while Koppalla was in the forecastle, busily looking for a line to secure one of the sails. Charles Boston was in the galley cooking some food. Frank Volpert was hiding below in a compartment at the back of the engine room. The instant that Volpert came on board that morning, Madden had taken him aside and instructed him to “Get out of sight and stay out of sight.”
At 12:25 p.m., as the Alexander Agassiz reached a point about three miles from the bar outside Mazatlán harbor, a large ship appeared in the distance—the USS Vicksburg, racing toward them at top speed.
As the Vicksburg loomed ever larger, Hendrik Koppalla, the twenty-three-year-old German sailor, spotted a familiar four-quadrant yellow and black checkerboard flag hoisted atop the mainmast—the international maritime signal flag for “stop vessel at once.”
“They want us to stop!” Koppalla called out.
The schooner immediately changed course, taking a heading to the west, and built up speed in an attempt to outrun the American warship.
Reordan had anchored the Vicksburg two miles north of Mazatlán in Viejo Bay, halfway between the harbor entrance and Venados Island. From that vantage point the American gunboat remained hidden from view, but could still keep watch over the main entryway to the port.
Heintz had given Reordan several dates on which the Agassiz might sail, and one of these was Sunday, March 17. The commander of the Vicksburg received word from the Pacific Fleet that the supply ship Brutus and Submarine Chaser 302 would arrive from the south that afternoon, so he positioned the Vicksburg to the north of Mazatlán hoping to lure the unsuspecting schooner out of the harbor. If the Agassiz departed toward the north she would be captured by the Vicksburg; if to the south, by the fast Sub Chaser 302.
Shortly after noon, the Alexander Agassiz was sighted “standing out” by a lookout on board the Vicksburg, and Reordan called the crew to battle stations. As the blue jackets ran to their combat positions, the gunboat’s anchor was quickly raised, and the Vicksburg got under way, steaming out of Viejo Bay at breakneck speed. When they reached a distance of one and a half miles from the Agassiz, the renegade schooner turned sharply away toward the west, and they knew they had been spotted. With its powerful triple expansion steam engine throbbing at maximum revolutions, the Vicksburg set off in hot pursuit, and Reordan issued a wireless message to the Brutus and Submarine Chaser 302: “RAIDER ESCAPING.”
Like an animal trapped in a cage, the Alexander Agassiz darted back and forth, her course altered a half dozen times during the chase that ensued. Finally, in a last-ditch effort to evade capture, the schooner turned south, trying to keep the Vicksburg astern while attempting a dash back into port. A distance of fifteen hundred yards now separated the two vessels.
Reordan called out an order to Fire Control on the Vicksburg, “Fire a three-inch over her bow!”
Seconds later, a loud bang echoed across the water, as one of Vicksburg’s one-pounder cannon sent a warning shot over the schooner’s bow that produced a white geyser in the sea beyond. The Agassiz immediately stopped dead in the water. The Vicksburg, still advancing at great speed, came upon the stationary boat quickly, and had to immediately reduce throttle to avoid overshooting the mark. Like the cavalry racing to the rescue, at that very moment, the Brutus and submarine chaser appeared in response to the Vicksburg’s radio message, and also closed on the Agassiz.
Reordan would later comment, “The populace ashore could plainly see the three American ships bearing down on the escaping vessel, and this formidable show of force will undoubtedly live long in the memories of the Germans and the Mexicans in that vicinity.”
One of the witnesses to the Agassiz’s capture, standing on the shore that day along the broad Olas Altas near the American embassy, was W. E. Miller, an American who owned a general store in Mazatlán. Miller was acquainted with Cornelius Heintz, and his interest in the events that unfolded that day had begun in the early morning when he became aware that Heintz had mysteriously disappeared.
He described his experiences in a letter to the Oxnard (California) Daily Courier:
Heintz was running a boarding house. His China cook came in Sunday morning and said his boss had skipped on the boat. Yes, everything gone. Nothing left in his room; his wife gone too.
Getting interesting. I will investigate. So we ate our dinner and walked down to the bay, only two blocks. No boat. So I started for the American consul—he lives on the waterfront (the ocean is just across the Olas Altas or a wide street). Just as soon as I could see the water I saw a gunboat—our boat—I have not told you the name of it yet, they call it the Alexander Agassiz. And just around the point a submarine chaser going through the water at 20 miles an hour toward them. I looked up: the consul lives in a two-story building and there he was watching the whole business through his field glasses. They were about five miles out from land. He said they signaled to the boat to stop and the boat tried to run away. A shot fired very close made them come to a standstill.
Why was one gunboat south of town and the other north? Why did they have a submarine chaser here? There may be something else going on that I don’t know of, but if you want to get the best of Uncle Sam, get up before you go to bed.
On the Vicksburg, Reordan ordered the watch officer, Lieutenant J. G. Frederick Dorr, to form a boarding party to search the schooner. Dorr assembled a detail of blue jackets and they clambered aboard a whaleboat that was prepared for launch.
While the gunboat was still some distance from the Alexander Agassiz, unusual activity was observed on the dormant vessel, which slowly maneuvered to keep her port side facing the American gunboat. Standing in the foretop, the paymaster of the Vicksburg, Edwin Armstrong, trained a pair of binoculars on the schooner and saw several individuals on deck run toward the chart house in the forward part of the ship, then exit on the (blind) starboard side of the structure and toss items over the railing into the water below. Lieutenant Dorr, sitting with the boarding party in the whaleboat swinging high in the davits above the Vicksburg’s deck, saw the same thing, and called out to the bridge “They are throwing things overboard on the Agassiz.”
Reordan, preoccupied with dodging a rock as he “conned” the Vicksburg (issued orders to control the boat’s movement through the water), was unable to look up, but when he did a few minutes later, “saw what was apparently two things being thrown overboard.” The Agassiz crew members engaged in this activity continued to toss items into the sea “for some time,” then were seen to disperse and scatter around the deck.
The whaleboat was lowered onto the water and the boarding party made their way to the Agassiz and clambered on board. Dorr announced that he wanted to speak to the boat’s captain and was surprised when a woman just over five feet tall, Maude Lochrane, stepped forward and told him that she was the captain. The naval officer demanded to see the ship’s papers. Maude led him to the chart house, where she produced a logbook that contained some entries in Spanish and a letter from W. E. Chapman answering her request to take the Agassiz on a trial run to test the engines. With skepticism in his voice, Dorr asked whether the documents represented all of the ship’s papers. She responded that they did.
Dorr directed Maude to assemble her crew on deck. After assigning two of the rifle-bearing blue jackets to watch them, he headed off with the remaining sailors to initiate a thorough search of the vessel. In the forward crew quarters Dorr discovered a quantity of letters, papers, and miscellaneous correspondence that he handed to one of the sailors accompanying him. In the chart house they found the two Winchester .30-30 rifles, a long-barreled Iver Johnson .32 revolver in a holster, an American double-action .32 revolver in a holster, a Colt .25 automatic, and 150 rounds of ammunition.
Dorr and his men proceeded to the engine room. Looking about the hold, he spotted a compartment that upon inspection proved to be narrow and shallow, and a second compartment that ran to the stern of the ship. Dorr ordered the smallest of the sailors to crawl into the darkened channel and search it. A short time later, the seaman came out and asked for a flashlight, then he reentered the compartment. Crawling on all fours among the tanks in the bilge, he came upon Volpert hiding in a remote opening under the engineer’s compartment, and quickly dragged him outside. Dorr asked Volpert his nationality and the tradesman responded “German.” They ordered him to empty his pockets, and among the items that he removed was a certificate that stated under the seal of the German consulate that he was a reservist in the German army. Volpert was escorted under guard to join the other members of the schooner’s crew on deck.
After completing a preliminary search of the schooner, Dorr and his detail of blue jackets returned to the chart house to conduct a more rigorous inspection. In a closet they discovered a set of international signal flags, and to their great surprise, a large red, white, and black German naval ensign. Examining the flag in the light of the doorway, Dorr saw two rows of odd, hieroglyphic characters written in chalk that extended the length of the ensign. In the center of the first row was a crude drawing of a railroad track. Unable to interpret the markings, he gave the flag to one of his men, and continued rummaging through the chart house. In a coat hanging on the wall they found a leather wallet that had a piece of paper concealed in a hidden pocket. When unfolded, the paper appeared to be part of a cipher:
| Hidden Cipher Key Discovered on Alexander Agassiz | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
9. |
8. |
7. |
6. |
5. |
4. |
3. |
2 |
||||
|
1. |
a |
b |
c |
d |
e |
f |
g |
h |
|||
|
2. |
i |
j |
k |
l |
m |
n |
o |
p |
|||
|
3. |
q |
r |
s |
t |
u |
v |
w |
x |
|||
|
4. |
y |
z |
|||||||||
|
1. |
2. |
3. |
4. |
5. |
6. |
7. |
8. |
9. |
0 |
||
|
m |
r |
s |
k |
l |
x |
a |
g |
n |
i |
||
|
repeat it |
|||||||||||
|
Bauman |
|||||||||||
|
1/8 |
1/9 |
3/5 |
2/5 |
1/7 |
2/4 |
t |
|||||
|
Source: NARA, RG121, Records of the United States District Courts, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Civil Law Case 622–636, Alexander Agassiz Prize Court Trial Records. |
|||||||||||
Dorr walked out onto the deck and informed Maude Lochrane that she was under arrest. The engines were started on the Alexander Agassiz, and the American sailors ran the boat alongside the Vicksburg. Dorr called up to Reordan, standing in the bridge of the gunboat, reporting what they had discovered. A “prize crew” from the Vicksburg was sent to operate the captured vessel, and the thirteen individuals that had been found on the Agassiz, along with the papers, firearms, ammunition, and flags were transported by whaleboat to the American warship.
Once on board, the raider crew members—Madden, Koppalla, Volpert, Brandt, and Boston were placed in irons, and kept under the constant guard of a blue jacket armed with a rifle with fixed bayonet, who paced back and forth near the area where they were confined. With their unshaven faces and rough clothing, wearing dusty fedoras or sailor caps, they were a hard-looking lot. The female prisoners, Maude Lochrane and Mrs. Heintz, were allowed the freedom of the gun deck.
Cornelius Heintz was held apart from the other prisoners. He informed Reordan and Dorr that during the forty-odd minutes that elapsed from the time that the German crewmen spotted the Vicksburg and the boarding party came aboard, a large quantity of items had been tossed overboard, including charts, the German code, a commission from the German government authorizing the boat as a raider, and several letters provided to Bauman and Madden for delivery when they reached Germany. The conspirators had been directed to destroy the letters if they did not reach their final destination. Heintz had personally seen Madden throw the sextant and papers overboard; the remaining items had been dropped in the water by other crewmen.
When Heintz was shown the items that had been confiscated aboard the Alexander Agassiz, he told the officers that they had overlooked the ship’s papers, which remained hidden aboard the schooner. “Miss Lochrane instructed Charlie Boston to hide them in the kitchen underneath a lot of rubbish in the corner of the room,” he told them, since Reordan and the American consul had previously been told they had been destroyed. A boat was dispatched to the Agassiz with Heintz and a pair of sailors who retrieved the ship’s papers from the concealed location and returned to the gunboat.
The Vicksburg steamed to Viejo Bay, where a conference was arranged between the American navy and Mexican government representatives to discuss the seizure of the Agassiz. Submarine Chaser 302 was used to convey the officials who would attend the meeting to the Vicksburg, which included the Mexican captain of the port, Julio Vázquez Schiaffino, Consul Chapman, Vice-Consul Gardiner, and British Vice-Consul Watson.
When the meeting was called to order, Schiaffino demanded that the Alexander Agassiz be returned to the port of Mazatlán on the basis that she had not properly cleared the port, and could not clear the port, because of an outstanding balance of several hundred pesos in port charges against her. Reordan, supported by the American and British consular officials, replied that outstanding port charges did not constitute legal grounds for demanding the vessel’s return, but in the interest of being conciliatory he offered to pay the port charges against the Agassiz if the Mexican officials agreed to remove all complaint against her capture. Schiaffino refused the offer, and demanded to know on what grounds the Alexander Agassiz had been captured. With W. E. Chapman acting as his interpreter, the commander of the Vicksburg stated his reasons for taking the American schooner as a prize:
1. The Alexander Agassiz did not have proper clearance papers and the ship’s papers that were on board had been concealed.
2. She had arms and ammunition on board. (These were taken out and displayed for the Captain of the Port to see.)
3. She had several German nationals and a German naval flag on board. (At this, the German prisoners were brought in and Schiaffino looked them over.)
4. The Agassiz refused to stop when given the signal to do so, and instead, turned out to sea in an attempt to flee.
Given these circumstances, Reordan explained to Schiaffino, he believed that the Alexander Agassiz had become an instrument of war to be used against the United States. The captain of the port remained indignant. In a further attempt to alleviate the situation, Reordan turned over the Mexicans that had been found on the schooner to the port official, convinced that they had taken no part in the German scheme and would have little value as witnesses.
When the three-hour conference ended, Reordan watched the captain of the port depart for Mazatlán “very much afraid that the Germans would mob him when he got ashore for not getting the vessel back.” Chapman was also apprehensive about the reaction of the German community, fearing that there would be a German-led demonstration against the American consulate. As Chapman left the Vicksburg, Reordan handed the consul a ship’s revolver and ammunition “on loan” in case of emergency.
The Vicksburg remained in Viejo Bay long enough to coal from the supply ship Brutus, and then anchored outside Mazatlán harbor with her “prize” (the Agassiz) until the following afternoon, when a coded message was received from the divisional commander:
From: Commander, Division Two.
March 18, 1918
To : Vicksburg.
Vicksburg proceed to San Diego with prize and prisoners. Acknowledge.
While the Vicksburg steamed toward California with the Agassiz in tow, the story of the raider’s capture had already become front-page news. The first reports were published in San Diego, the Vicksburg’s next port of call. Under the headline “American Gunboat Takes Hun Raider off Mexican Coast,” the San Diego Union revealed:
The auxiliary schooner Alexander Agassiz, formerly a craft owned and operated by the University of California in research work at sea was captured off Mazatlan by an American gunboat . . . Germany’s first attempt to outfit a raider at a west coast Mexican port with which to create havoc with Pacific coast shipping has been frustrated . . . An astounding mass of intrigue, implicating officials at Mazatlán, is being unfolded as a result of the capture of the would-be German corsair . . . Attempted revenge on Americans for being blacklisted is said to be one of the principal reasons for the outfitting of the Agassiz as a raider. Funds for the purchase of supplies and munitions were raised by Mazatlán German firms whose trade has been seriously curtailed since being placed on the American black list.
In a story titled “Women on German Raider Seized at Sea by U.S. Ship,” the San Diego Evening Tribune announced:
The German raider Alexander Agassiz, captured near Mazatlán by a United States cruiser will arrive here in a day or two according to Washington advices today . . . The raider had 13 persons on board when captured, the company including five Germans, two women and six Mexicans . . . One woman, at least, is believed to be an American adventuress well-known in San Diego and Los Angeles, who has attempted to turn her beauty to great financial account . . . Many merchantmen in the Pacific only, do not carry defense guns and it would have been a comparatively easy task for the men on the Agassiz with their rifles and pistols to seize a ship of such type.
National wire services picked up the story. Within days, sensational accounts of the schooner’s capture appeared in newspapers across the United States. As word of the foiled German raiding mission spread, published reports grew ever more exaggerated. According to one paper, the schooner was captured “15 miles out of Mazatlán, flying the flag of the Imperial German Navy.” Another announced that “typical Teuton methods of sabotage were followed by the Hun raiders uncovered aboard the auxiliary schooner Alexander Agassiz to destroy the vessel’s engines with dynamite when they were near capture by a United States warship . . . at least two rapid-fire guns were thrown overboard.” A further account stated that “a dozen other raiders are today being prepared on the Mexican west coast to prey on Pacific commerce and [will] harass the coast if they can elude the American gunboats.”
While the story played out in the press, it also came to the attention of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935), which quietly opened a criminal investigation titled “Ship Alexander Agassiz—Alleged German Raider” to determine whether any federal laws had been violated by the participants. Bureau agents in San Diego and Los Angeles gathered evidence and interviewed anyone with information about Maude Lochrane, the Agassiz crew members, or the Pacific Coast Trading and Shipping Company.
Joseph Mesmer was questioned in his office at the St. Louis Fire Brick Company. A respected industrialist, Mesmer found himself in potentially serious circumstances. Anti-German hysteria was at its peak in the United States, and Mesmer, a second-generation German American, had helped to finance a suspected German commerce raider. He explained to the Justice Department agents that he provided the $5,000 bond for the purchase of the Alexander Agassiz as a personal favor to Maude Lochrane, and then turned over all of the private correspondence, letters, telegrams, and legal documents that he had exchanged with the University of California, Maude Lochrane, and government officials relating to the purchase and operation of the vessel. Mesmer’s files provided a trove of information for the investigators to use in piecing together the murky history of the Alexander Agassiz.
The authorities also interviewed Maude’s former partners, William Taylor, her brother Frank Wheeler, and his wife Minnie. Taylor (aka Guillermo Taliferro) had fled from San Francisco in February 1918, shortly before he was to go on trial for “stealing $500 from a negro” and was extradited from a jail cell in Honolulu for questioning and trial. Frank Wheeler, now an auditor with the Gunset Cigar Company of Honolulu, assured investigators that his adopted sister was innocent, as did his wife Minnie. Wheeler contended that either Maude was overcome by force or the Germans had used some form of trickery to gain possession of the boat.
Special Agent V. W. Killick, who interviewed Joseph Mesmer and Minnie Wheeler, summarized in his findings that “Miss Lochrane is reputed to be honest, by both Mesmer and Mrs. Wheeler. Mrs. Wheeler stated that a sister of Miss Lochrane recently died in Michigan leaving two orphan children. Miss Lochrane has undertaken to support and care for these. Neither Mesmer nor Mrs. Wheeler would question the loyalty of Miss Lochrane. They are firm in the conviction that if the Alexander Agassiz has actually been used as a German raider, Miss Lochrane was taken advantage of by unscrupulous parties in Mexico, or may have sold it to agents of the Germans unknowingly.”
A wealth of information from the public flowed into Bureau field offices after photographs of the schooner’s German crew appeared in the press. Edward Gripper, the “Chinese Inspector” in Yuma, Arizona, informed the Bureau’s Los Angeles office that Arthur Martens (Madden), pictured aboard the Alexander Agassiz in Los Angeles newspapers, had worked in Andrade, California, in early 1917, and was reported to have offered to serve with Mexican General Calles if a war broke out between Mexico and the United States. According to Gripper, Madden “talked bitterly against the United States” while under the influence of alcohol. William Black, the dredge watchman for the Southern Pacific Railroad at Andrade, advised the Bureau’s field office in Tucson that Madden had told him “that he [Madden] was on the boat Maverick in San Francisco . . . loaded with arms and ammunition to be taken to a German cruiser, but that the United States government would not permit it. At the time of the Mexican trouble, Madden had been reported as saying that in case of war between the U.S. and Mexico, he would be with the Mexicans over the U.S. in helping the Mexicans to make war on the U.S.” Judge Brown, the postmaster at Calipatria, California, advised the San Diego Bureau field office that crewman Richard Brandt had ranched on the outskirts of Calipatria for a year and a half, before leaving the area the previous year. Brown claimed that other parties had told him that at the time the U.S. entered the war, “Brandt had stated that he was a German reservist and that he was going to Mexico to organize a bunch of Mexicans and invade the United States.”
The crew of the Alexander Agassiz had been confined in shackles on the Vicksburg for ten days when the gunboat steamed into San Diego harbor with the schooner in tow. The prisoners were brought ashore by whaleboat and turned over to U.S. Marshal W. C. Carse for delivery to the San Diego county jail. The only exception was Mrs. Cornelius Heintz, who was nearing childbirth and moved to a local hospital. Reporters gathered at the county jail, anxious to interview the “beautiful red-haired adventuress” of the scheme, Maude Lochrane, but were told that she was being held incommunicado—no visitors allowed.
The Agassiz was moored alongside the municipal bulkhead, a pier just north of the Broadway dock. Guarded by a detail of armed blue jackets, the German raider quickly became an object of curiosity for hundreds of waterfront visitors. Also paying a visit to view the boat—and be given a guided tour to familiarize themselves with the “evidence”—were the U.S. district attorney and several members of the court who would rule on the legality of her seizure.
The status of the Alexander Agassiz as a “prize,” whether the schooner and its crew had been lawfully captured, was to be decided by a “prize court.” Dating back hundreds of years, a prize court is a legal proceeding conducted by a nation that captures a private ship or merchant vessel in time of war to determine whether it was validly seized and to decide who holds title to the ship and its cargo. In accordance with the provisions of American prize court procedure at the time, two members of the Agassiz prize court were appointed by a federal judge, Benjamin Bledsoe of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California: J. E. Fishburn, a Los Angeles banker, and judge W. R. Andrews, the former city attorney for San Diego. The third and final member, and the leader of the prize court, Lieutenant W. R. Cushman, was appointed by the Navy Department based on his extensive experience in international law. United States District Attorney Robert O’Connor would handle the prosecution for the government.
The fate of Maude Lochrane, Cornelius Heintz and his wife, the German crew members, and the schooner Alexander Agassiz itself, would unfold in four days at the Federal Building in San Diego when the prize court went into session.
In Mazatlán, the German authorities publicly disclaimed any involvement in the Alexander Agassiz affair, and disseminated reports that the raider had not been a raider at all—the schooner’s capture by the Americans was entirely due to the failure of her debts being paid in Mazatlán before she sailed off. In private, the mission’s failure resulted in anger and recriminations. The blow was softened by the knowledge that five seagoing submarines would soon come through the Straits of Magellan and Smythe’s Channel to the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras, and Salvador, and two of the submarines would continue to cruise stealthily north to the west coast of Mexico. When the salvaged Morelos was fit for duty as a submarine tender, the U-boats would commence operations off the western coast of the United States.
And nothing would disrupt that plan.