KAPITÄNLEUTNANT BOCKHOLT

Commander Strasser found the choice of a captain for the "China" ship more difficult than he expected. The Ministry of the Navy was pressing him to make the appointment as quickly as possible so that the prospective commander could go to the Zeppelin works and become acquainted with the unusual features of his ship as it was being built. For Strasser the selection of the commander was a very personal task. He knew every officer of his command and took a close interest in their personal welfare. He was intensely loyal to his service friends, particularly to the old-timers, and this perhaps biased his judgment at times.

On the top of Strasser's list of possible commanders stood one of his inner circle, the slender, carefree, 29 year old Baron Horst Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels. Buttlar had entered the navy as cadet in 1907. In 1913, as the 16th ranking officer on the heavy cruiser "Moltke", he had grown restless in the anthill anonimity of service on board a capital ship and had applied for a transfer to a submarine. The navy had done him one better. It had offered him the post of airship commander in the newly formed Airship Division with a promotion to Lieutenant.

Buttlar had been delighted. Gone was the faceless crowd of the "Moltke". The new Airship Division was a small, select unit. There were only six airship captains, twelve officers altogether counting the engineers and the paymaster. None of the men selected for the unit had any flying experience and so its new commander, Strasser, together with his adjutant, Lt. Hirsch (later killed when his ship exploded in a thunderstorm) and the airship captains to be underwent flying training together.

Eckener had been in charge of the training; Lehmann had commanded the training ship, Count Zeppelin's "Sachsen". The shared adventure of flying training and the experience of starting a new branch of the service together, no doubt, had forged a strong, personal bond between Strasser and his officers.

It is said that Buttlar had been on board of "L 2" before it started on its ill fated acceptance trials but had been ordered off the ship at the last minute when it was found to be overloaded. Fate thus had held its protective hand over Buttlar as it was to do again on a number of occasions, permitting him to die at the age of 74 while on vacations in Berchtesgaden.

When "L 3" was completed, Buttlar had been appointed its Executive Officer and on November 6, 1914, he had received his Own command, the newly finished "L 6". Since then, he had distinguished himself on numerous airship operations which later would earn nim the coveted silver and blue "Ordre pour le Mérite". He had worked on the Africa problem with Sommerfeldt. Surely the honor of leading the Africa flight belonged to Buttlar.

When Buttlar learned of the prospective appointment, he was overjoyed. His place in history seemed assured.

However, Strasser reconsidered. Sending Buttlar to Africa meant losing his experience and abilities for the rest of the war. It might also mean sending the man to his death. During the past year, Strasser had lost some of his best airship leaders. He was not eager to loose another one. Buttlar was now the "old man", the last flying officer of the Airship Division of 1914.

Buttlar's family circumstances also spoke against the choice. His father, a lieutenant colonel of artillery, had been killed during the first few weeks of the war. Buttlar's young wife was pregnant with their second child. His duties were hazardous enough without deliberately assigning him to a flight as dangerous as this one, at the end of which waited guerilla war, privation and disease.

Strasser consoled Buttlar with the promise of an even larger ship, 3,531,000 cubic feet then being planned for regular service to Africa. Displacing 3,531,000, it was to to be bigger than the famous post war "Graf Zeppelin". In the final stages of the war, there was, in fact, a ten engined ship of that size on the drawing boards, the "L 100". The order for the ship was not actually placed by Strasser but by his successor. The idea for such a ship probably originated with Strasser,however. He consistently agitating for ships which could fly faster and could climb higher.

Lehmann also asked for the command of the Africa ship and his flight on "LZ 120" gave him a good claim to it. He, too, was too valuable to risk losing on a perilous adventure. He was supervising the construction of "L 57" at Friedrichshafen.

As "L 57" was being completed, another ship, "L 54" was being outfitted at the Tondern base. Its captain was Lieutenant Commander (Kapitänleutnant) Ludwig Bockholt. He was born on March 1, 1885 in Heerdt in the Rhineland. Heerdt was then a small village; now it is a bustling industrial suburb of neighboring Düsseldorf. His parents were catholic and he was baptized Johann Louis. Some time before his 18th year, for reasons best known to himself, he dropped the Johann and translated the French name Louis, unusual in Germany at that time, into its German equivalent Ludwig. Bockholt's birth certificate lists his father's occupation as "Landwirt" (farmer) but he must have been prosperous enough to be able to send his son to the "Gymnasium", roughly the equivalent of high school, for which tuition had to be paid. Graduation from the Gymnasium enabled Bockholt to apply for a midshipman's berth in the navy at 18.

It was a good time to apply for a navy commission. The navy enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Emperor William II. It was his favorite service, his personal plaything. The Navy Law of 1898 had laid down the first plans for a large navy; in 1900 the Reichstag voted substantial funds for it and in the process, the naval strength projected in 1898 was doubled to 34 battleships and 70 cruisers, to be still further enlarged later. The demand for officers was great. At least in part by design, the navy was not solely the domain of Prussian nobility as were all but the lowest ranks of the army. Even though the top posts in the. navy were mostly occupied by those whose names contained the prefix "von", a man without that predicate of nobility had at least had a chance to advance if he was so inclined and had something within him to back his ambitions. The creator of the German navy, Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, had himself been born a commoner. He was elevated to the nobility when he was appointed Secretary of State for the Navy after serving in that service for 21 years with distinction. The navy was the place for a young man like Bockholt who enjoyed none of the advantages assured by social status and family.

The new midshipman was a tall, round faced man. Life had not yet marked his face, he was too young for that, and character also had made only a slight imprint so far. He had a broad, thin mouth, almost tightlipped, that said nothing to the observer. The formal portrait for which he sat at the Naval School, shows his eyes, set together slightly more closely than ideal proportion might call for, unfocussed as if he did not wish to look at the photographer and had chosen no other point upon which to fix his gaze. His hat was placed straight upon his head, in part hiding his face and increasing the anonimity of his features. To be sure, the occasion was not one which encouraged spontaneity or expression of individuality in a young midshipman but the resulting picture is one of a man feeling slightly out of place, who had retreated behind a wall of blankness.

His naval career began with the customary year at sea on a cadet training ship. Then followed Two years as a midshipman at the Naval School at Mürwick, near the great naval base at Kiel. After he passed his final examinations, he was commissioned an Ensign in 1907. Promotion to Lieutenant came somewhat more quickly than usual. During the next five years he spent two years on board a cruiser and a torpedo boat and the rest of the time he served as a company officer on shore at the naval base at Wilhelmshaven and in the German colony at Tsingtao in China. This was rather more shore duty than than was customary for a junior officer but in 1914 he went back to sea in the new, 24,000 ton battleship "Prinzregent Luitpold". She caried a crew of 1073 men and Bockholt was one of a staff of thirty officers. The "Prinzregent" was not a happy ship. She had been put into service on August 19, 1913, with a patchwork crew that not yet been welded into a team. Her officers, like Bockholt, lacked big ship experience. Discipline was "mangelhaft" - inadequate. After the Spring exercises of 1914, she was rated not fully ready for combat because of the inadequacies of her crew.

The "Prinzregent" remained an unhappy ship. A later commander of the ship wrote that her captain was the "absolute master of his ship. The men were afraid of him, very much afraid. That is no bond that lasts". When war was declared, life on board became an endless progression of drills, cruises that went nowhere and stand-by alerts that did not lead to action. During airship raids on England, the battleships were always put on stand-by in case it might be necessary to sally forth to assist a damaged airship. It must have been humiliating for the crews to see their iron battleships wait in harbor while the gasbags smote England. Finally, in 1916, came the battle of Jutland - the great collision of the battlefleets so long in building. The "Prinzgregent Luitpold" claimed to have sunk two English destroyers but in the engagements with the heavier enemy units, she dealt no blows and rereceived none. After the battle, however, the "Prinzregent Luitpold", like the rest of the German battleships, again spent most of her time in harbor. Bored, Bockholt volunteered for the airship service. Shortly after Bockholt left the ship, her crew mutinied.

In the summer of 1916, there were twenty four Executive Officers, mostly with the rank of lieutenant, on flying duty with the Airship Division. The German navy, however, was chary with promotions and firm about the prerogatives of rank. Bockholt's rank of Lieutenant Commander, which he had in the meantime attained, entitled him to the command of an airship and so it came about that he, rather than one of the Executive Officers already on flying duty, was sent to be trained as an airship captain. In October, he was assigned to "L 11" which had been pressed into service after the ane lost both of its training airships by fire on September 16th. The normal training course for an airship commander and his crew - they were trained together - was six months but the pressures of war and the new shortage of training ships shortened Bockholt's training time. After completing the course, he was, on January 30, 1917, given command of airship "L 23".

The Bockholt of 1917 looked little different from the young midshipman who had entered the navy in 1903. The face was Still unremarkable but small diagonal folds had now formed at the corners of his mouth. They suggested firmness and determination. By now Bockholt had been habituated to the exercise of military authority.

Göbel, a meteorologist who later served with Bockholt, described him as a "Faust Natur" - a man like the Dr. Faust of Goethe's drama who sold his soul to the devil to obtain satisfaction of his earthly quests. Göbel added that Bockholt was a "very determined soldier who could not be moved from a decision once he made it; his eagerness to make decisions ("Entschlussfreudigkeit") was to lead him to his misfortune". This description calls to mind the scene in which Faust, searching for an apt translation of the first sentence of the Gospel of St. John, "In the beginning was the word", decides that the words "In the beginning was the deed" is the true German translation of the original. Bockholt's new ship, "L 23", was next to the last of the 1,264,000 cubic foot type "q" ships which had been built for the navy in 1915 and 1916. Its ceiling of only 11,500 feet and its maximum Speed of 57 m.p.h. made it semi-obsolete by 1917. "L 23" normally patrolled the eastern sector of the zeppelin screen which the German navy maintained over the North Sea every day when the weather allowed it. It cruised along the Danish coast and over the Skagerrak, reconnoitered, flew protective cover for minesweepers, kept an eye on neutral shipping and fishing vessels and watched for any sign of the British fleet. Bockholt never saw it. Once again, he faced a humdrum routine.

Less than three months after Bockholt assumed command of "L 23",however, he made himself a hero to the Airship Division while at the same time earning a stiff reprimand from the Chief of the Naval Airships. April 23, 1917 had been a day off for the crew of "L 23". A report that submarine "UC 30" was missing in the North Sea sent "L 23" belatedly aloft at 9:36 a.m. with orders to search for the vessel along the Danish coast as far as Norway. At 10:30 a.m., "L 23" received a radio message, that "UC 30" had reported in, a report that turned out to be mistaken. Bockholt was ordered to reconnoiter over the Grand Fisher Bank instead.

At about two o'clock, Bockholt sighted to starboard a medium-sized, flush decked bark - a vessel Square rigged on the fore and main mast and fore and after rigged on the rear, mizzen mast. The ship was the 36 year old, 664 ton "Royal", flying the Norwegian flag. She was at a point about 90 miles south of Andeles Light, leaving the Skagerrak and heading into the North Sea. Bockholt would not have given this worn, graceless ship a second look except that she was sailing on a westerly course in the direction of England with a. deck cargo of mining pit props. This cargo was contraband.

Bockholt approached the bark warily. A single incendiary bullet flashing into one of the airship's hydrogen cells would transform it into a blazing inferno instantly. He had to be sure that this harmless looking ship was not a British trap. A few months earlier, Buttlar had mistaken the English armed trawler "Ramexo" for a fishing vessel and flown over her at low altitude. "Ramexo" had opened fire and forced Buttlar to beat an ignominious retreat. Only by hitting "the panic button" (the Germans called it the "Sammelknopf" or Instantaneous Release Button), which sent "L 30's" bombload plummeting into the ocean and dropping most of his ballast besides, had Buttlar been able to get away. ship's crew lowered two lifeboats and rowed away from the ship. Bockholt's maneuvers had alarmed the captain of the "Royal", Lorentz Eriksen. He knew that the Germans were now waging unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters surrounding England and France as well as in the Mediterranean. Disregarding previously accepted rules of warfare, U boats were sinking all ships intercepted, whether Allied or neutral, without warning and without regard for the safety of the crew. The number of ships torpedoed had grown rapidly, reaching a climax on the 19th of April when eleven merchantmen and eight fishing vessels went to their ocean graves. After that the new convoy system adopted by the Allies provided gradually greater protection. Captain Eriksen knew that "Royal" was carrying contraband cargo. Loaded on deck, it was in plain sight. With open season on all those trading with England, what would this "Zeppeliner" do? The prudent thing was to get away from the ship, clear of any bombs the German might drop.

The abandoned ship lay gently rolling in the calm sea. It was a temptation which Bockholt could not resist. Winterweather and frequent engine trouble had permitted him to make only eleven patrol flights during the eighty three days he had been on "L 23" and nothing worthy of note had occured on any of the flights. The future promised no greater opportunities for distinction or excitement. Now he saw his chance - never before had an airship had ever captured a ship on the high seas!

"L 23" landed on the water near the Norwegian lifeboats, a delicate and difficult maneuver. First Mate Fegert and two petty officers, armed with pistols, boarded one of the boats. At gun point, they forced the hapless Norwegian crew to return to the "Royal" and set sail for Hamburg. "L 23" followed the ship for an hour and to make sure that all went well and then resumed its patrol. For some reason Bocknolt delayed reporting the capture until 5:33 p.m. "L 23" returned to its base at 9:52. Instead of the expected praise, Commander Strasser handed Bockholt a "big cigar", as the Germans referred to a reprimand. Open water landings were too risky and the threat of hidden guns too great. A ship like the "Royal" and her cargo were not worth the risk to which Bockholt had put "L 23", Strasser knew that the British were going to great lengths to hunt down German zeppelins. That very morning, he had instructed Lt. Bödecker in "L 30", searching for "UC 30" on a course to the west of "L 23", to check on some suspicious English fishing vessels that had appeared on the Dogger Bank lately but he had ordered Bödecker to "check with great caution. Do not approach to closely!" Having given these orders to Bödecker, Strasser must have been livid over Bockholt's disregard of what he considered common sense prudence. Strasser's fury could hardly have been dampened by the the knowledge that Lt. Bödecker had sighted a Dutch three masted sailing vessel, the "Sirra", at about the same time Bockholt had found the "Royal". She had been northbound with a deck cargo Bödecker had been unable to make out and he had let her go.

The story of the "Royal" quickly made the rounds among the airship crews. It was a tonic for their low spirits. They could still confound the world with their courage and daring. With each retelling the deed gained in elan and valor. A bomb had been dropped to stop the unresponsive Norwegians, the machine guns had fired several bursts into the water to intimidate the crew, the prize crew had cowed the Norwegians by telling them they would blow the old scow sky high if they did not obey and similar braggadocio. By dint of repetition these tales later became "historical facts", faithfully reported by all manner of writers and historians.

Upon the safe arrival of the "Royal" in Hamburg, the German newspapers reported the "extraordinary accomplishment", adding that Fegert had "so highly distinguished himself" that he had been promoted to warrant officer on the spot. By grim blunder - or was it Strasser's way of discouraging Similar foolhardy quests for glory - the newspapers gave credit for the capture of the "Royal" to Lt. Commander Koch who had been killed several days earlier. Bockholt was not mentioned at all.

Despite the reprimand Bockholt had received, he made another waterlanding on May 23rd. He came down near some Danish fishing vessels to pick up two German airmen the Danes had rescued after they had crashed. Strasser said nothing about the matter, at least not officially. The rescue of two fellow soldiers is hard to criticize, although Bockholt could have relayed the Danish signal to some German ship in Heligoland Bay instead.

On June 14, Bockholt and his crew were reassigned to the newly completed "L 54", a much larger ship. Assignment to new ships went strictly by length of flying service but the heavy toll among airship crews brought Bockholt to the top of the list after only six months of flying duty.

To Strasser, Bockholt seemed to be the right man for the "China" ship. The assignment to "L 54" had given Bockholt and his crew a chance to acquaint themselves with the type of ship which was being used to build "L 57". Bockholt had proven his courage and as a junior officer he could be more readily spared than others. He would leave no wife or children behind; he was, like Maas, a bachelor.

Once he had selected Bockholt, Strasser backed him to the hilt. He gave him a free hand in getting the "China" ship ready and urged the Ministry of the Navy that it do so also, describing Bockholt as an "excellent, tested airship commander whom I judge, because of his personality, to be particularly Suitable for the undertaking". Strasser's clerk, however, was not yet familiar with the name of this airship commander, mispelling it every time as he wrote to the letter to the Ministry.

On September 20, with orders to lead "Operation China" in his pocket, Bockholt turned "L 54" over to his successor. It was the disappointed Buttlar. Then he hurried off to the Zeppelin Works in Friedrichshafen and his new command, "L 57". He was expected the next day.