One hundred years ago on December 13 1916 Gary’s great-uncle Francis Sulley along with about 460 other officers and seamen captured or detained off the merchant vessels that had been sunk by the German raider, were all transferred from the hold of the German raider to the hold and cabins of the SS Yarrowdale. They were to number among the many prisoners captured during World War 1. The Yarrowdale was another captured British merchant vessel, taken by the Moewe, the German raider. The reason they did not sink the Yarrowdale and instead put a German prize crew aboard led by a Lieutenant Badewitz was because the Yarrowdale was carrying too valuable a cargo to have it sunk. They had over 100 Ford trucks aboard and they had ingots of steel. The idea was that the prize crew was going to take the ship back to Germany while the Moewe continued to raid. So the Yarrowdale took the prisoners back to Germany by the end of December after having successfully run the British blockade and avoided other hazards in the middle of the winter in the North Atlantic.
We are including a German propaganda film from the time period. It shows both the capture and sinking of the Georgic and also the transfer of the seamen to the Yarrowdale. Is Gary’s great uncle visible among the prisoners? Maybe. Gary doesn’t even have a picture of his great uncle. The is the result of the vagaries of history. All he can do is assume he looks like his grandfather. He was his brother.
Dora Benley could have been lost, too, when she was taken prisoner on May 7, 1915. But she was lucky enough to row ashore to Queenstown, Ireland and get rescued by Edward Ware.
You can watch archival footage of the Yarrowdale from the U.S. National Archive.