Junk-Emden

Ship without harbor, knowing no ease,

Unforgettable queen of the seas;

"Emden," thou never, never canst die;

Over the seas thy shadow will fly,

Ever to make the enemy quail,

Ever in German hearts to sail!

Thus reads one verse of a famed German gloat-hymn, but the fame of the Emden will not live in gloat-verse alone. So decreed President Paul von Hindenburg of Germany, last week.

A year ago in March, a stalwart Emden machinist, Hans Junk, went to President von Hindenburg and asked permission to adopt the glorious name of Junk-Emden for himself and to bestow it upon his progeny. Recently came Chief Machinist Friedrich Garbe, asking that he might become Friedrich Garbe-Emden. President von Hindenburg ruminated long, but last week the enabling decree was signed. Not only machinists Garbe-Emden and Junk-Emden, but any other survivors of the crew of the gallant cruiser who so desire may now legally hyphen-Emdenize their names "as a title of honor."

On the day in 1914 that War was declared, the German light cruiser Emden lay in the Yellow Sea, off Tsingtao, China. Capt. Karl von Muller delivered to his crew an oration, elegant yet fiery. The band played "Die Wacht am Rhein" and the Emden cleared decks to commence her single-handed war on enemy shipping.

The great Marlborough himself was no more punctilious than Capt. von Muller of the Emden. It was his boast that between August and November 1914 the Emden destroyed 20 million dollars worth of enemy shipping, mostly British, without the loss of a single life. True, the Emden sailed the Pacific under a British flag, disguised, with the aid of a disappearing canvas funnel, as the British cruiser Yarmouth. But within 1,000 yds. of her prey the behavior of the Emden was always scrupulously correct. Down came the flag and the dummy funnel; out broke the German ensign.

After the War, the irrepressible first mate, Kapitaenleutnant Helmuth von Muecke, said that the captains of captured British ships always seemed more anxious about whether they would be allowed to save their supply of whiskey than about anything else. It also seemed to Kap.-Lt. von Muecke that the captains' loyalty to the line employing them was greater than to their country. In several instances, he said, they revealed to him the proximity of ships of competing lines.

It was the custom of the Emden to travel accompanied by a coal tender and, usually, a "junkman." The "junkman" was a neutral or valueless ship detained by Capt. von Mueller to be used as a floating hotel for the crews and passengers of destroyed vessels. When loaded to capacity, the "junkman" was released and sent steaming off to the nearest port. So bloated grew the Emden with provisions from her victims that Captain von Mueller gave a band concert every afternoon and served coffee and bonbons to his crew.

On Nov. 8, 1914, the Emden sent a landing party ashore to destroy the wireless station of Port Refuge in the Keeling Islands. Up steamed the Australian cruiser Sydney, half again as large as the Emden. After a running fight which lasted ten hours the Emden was driven ashore, a blazing wreck.

With Captain von Mueller captured and safely interned, British papers saluted "the gallant commander who handled his ship with the skill of an accomplished sea officer and the courtesy of a chivalrous gentleman."

"It is well known," said the Daily Mail, "that the mother of Captain von Mueller, was British." Here was another of the famed "War lies" (TIME, Jan. 21). Capt. von Mueller's mother was thoroughly German.

Gallant Capt. von Mueller died in 1923, too soon to Emdenize his name.