gifts. At present he is using the dockyard lying time of the ship in order to train as a flyer in San Stefano and has already as observation officer brought repeated valuable intelligence of the enemy. 85
That autumn the
Breslau
got a new Captain, von Knorr. Dönitz came to respect him enormously for his first-rate intellect, professional skill and energy. The regard was fully reciprocated, and when the cruiser came out of dock in February 1916 and started working up again to battle readiness, von Knorr chose Dönitz as his Adjutant—after which, he recorded, he had no free time: in harbour, if von Knorr was aboard, Dönitz had to be in attendance, and at sea he never moved from his side. ‘If by night we were not in touch with the enemy we sat together above the bridge on the compass platform on two empty soap boxes and kept a look-out. I am very grateful to Captain von Knorr for my tactical education.’ 86
On March 22, Dönitz received his step up to
Oberleutnant zur See
, equivalent to a junior lieutenant in the British or American services. Evidently he thought this gave him sufficient financial base to marry; the Kaiser’s personal office which dealt with officers’ marriages must have agreed for he received the Royal consent. Perhaps his father had left some investments; certainly Ingeborg brought a marriage dowry with her.
The wedding was arranged for late May. A few weeks before, Dönitz was awarded the Iron Cross first class for his part in an encounter with a Russian dreadnought battleship. She was a new ship, the
Imperatriza Maria
, commissioned during the cruiser’s time in the dockyard. She had upset the balance in the Black Sea for she was practically as fast as the
Breslau
and had enormously more powerful guns.
Dönitz described the action in his 1917 book in imaginative style with dramatic pauses marked by lines of dots:
Something unpeaceful, indefinite expectancy hangs in the air … All nerves and fibres are tense … and as if our ship has a special organ to sense this, the aerials above begin to sing and crackle; it strengthens, rattling gently in the wires.
Wireless traffic!
The voices of the night become gradually livelier; the Russian warships must be in the neighbourhood.
The
Breslau
proceeds cautiously, watchfully as if scenting game …
There, four points on the port bow two dark shadows emerge from the westerly night sky—Russian warships. They are only some 60 hectometres [three miles] distant and steering an opposite course.
Rapidly we close … 87
Soon they made them out as the new dreadnought and a cruiser, but the
Breslau
merged into the dark background of the Caucasus coastline and the Russians did not spot her. Dönitz’s story spins out the agony as the ships passed each other; in his memoirs a more accurate account describes how von Knorr called down to the engineroom for no sparks from the funnels, and manoeuvred the cruiser so as to open the way clear to the west. Shortly afterwards a light flashed from the Russian battleship. Dönitz answered the signals by repeating the same letters back, and von Knorr called down to the engineroom for the utmost power on both engines. To return to the more dramatic, earlier account:
An ever-increasing rushing movement goes through the whole ship. A monstrously powerful straining seems to develop. The ship’s body trembles, the screws hum, buzz, churn, the ventilators howl and roar, and the four bellowing funnels shoot sparkling rain.
A foaming stream of water shoots forth from under the stern, the
Breslau
starts up with its 36,000 horsepower and in short time is raging away at highest speed. 88
The Russian dreadnought, meanwhile, continued to call up with her searchlight and Dönitz continued to repeat the signal letters back to her; long after the war he learned that the battleship’s gunnery officer wanted to open fire, but the Admiral would not allow it in case the unknown cruiser turned out to be one of their own they were
That autumn the
Breslau
got a new Captain, von Knorr. Dönitz came to respect him enormously for his first-rate intellect, professional skill and energy. The regard was fully reciprocated, and when the cruiser came out of dock in February 1916 and started working up again to battle readiness, von Knorr chose Dönitz as his Adjutant—after which, he recorded, he had no free time: in harbour, if von Knorr was aboard, Dönitz had to be in attendance, and at sea he never moved from his side. ‘If by night we were not in touch with the enemy we sat together above the bridge on the compass platform on two empty soap boxes and kept a look-out. I am very grateful to Captain von Knorr for my tactical education.’ 86
On March 22, Dönitz received his step up to
Oberleutnant zur See
, equivalent to a junior lieutenant in the British or American services. Evidently he thought this gave him sufficient financial base to marry; the Kaiser’s personal office which dealt with officers’ marriages must have agreed for he received the Royal consent. Perhaps his father had left some investments; certainly Ingeborg brought a marriage dowry with her.
The wedding was arranged for late May. A few weeks before, Dönitz was awarded the Iron Cross first class for his part in an encounter with a Russian dreadnought battleship. She was a new ship, the
Imperatriza Maria
, commissioned during the cruiser’s time in the dockyard. She had upset the balance in the Black Sea for she was practically as fast as the
Breslau
and had enormously more powerful guns.
Dönitz described the action in his 1917 book in imaginative style with dramatic pauses marked by lines of dots:
Something unpeaceful, indefinite expectancy hangs in the air … All nerves and fibres are tense … and as if our ship has a special organ to sense this, the aerials above begin to sing and crackle; it strengthens, rattling gently in the wires.
Wireless traffic!
The voices of the night become gradually livelier; the Russian warships must be in the neighbourhood.
The
Breslau
proceeds cautiously, watchfully as if scenting game …
There, four points on the port bow two dark shadows emerge from the westerly night sky—Russian warships. They are only some 60 hectometres [three miles] distant and steering an opposite course.
Rapidly we close … 87
Soon they made them out as the new dreadnought and a cruiser, but the
Breslau
merged into the dark background of the Caucasus coastline and the Russians did not spot her. Dönitz’s story spins out the agony as the ships passed each other; in his memoirs a more accurate account describes how von Knorr called down to the engineroom for no sparks from the funnels, and manoeuvred the cruiser so as to open the way clear to the west. Shortly afterwards a light flashed from the Russian battleship. Dönitz answered the signals by repeating the same letters back, and von Knorr called down to the engineroom for the utmost power on both engines. To return to the more dramatic, earlier account:
An ever-increasing rushing movement goes through the whole ship. A monstrously powerful straining seems to develop. The ship’s body trembles, the screws hum, buzz, churn, the ventilators howl and roar, and the four bellowing funnels shoot sparkling rain.
A foaming stream of water shoots forth from under the stern, the
Breslau
starts up with its 36,000 horsepower and in short time is raging away at highest speed. 88
The Russian dreadnought, meanwhile, continued to call up with her searchlight and Dönitz continued to repeat the signal letters back to her; long after the war he learned that the battleship’s gunnery officer wanted to open fire, but the Admiral would not allow it in case the unknown cruiser turned out to be one of their own they were
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