board, one of whom had a loud megaphone hailer, coming at full speed with a huge bow wave between the lifeboats and then slowing down.
“ We want your Captain, First Mate, Chief Engineer, and Chief Steward. Please report which boats they are in.” We replied the Captain was in our boat, and the picket boat quickly drew alongside, picked him up Capt. Stratford first, then the Chief Engineer from another boat, and so on, and quickly sped off at full speed towards the “Nankin”. Although it was only a small incident which took place very quickly it was particularly important, because it told us for the very first time that our enemy was in fact German, and not Japanese as we had assumed, which was at least some small comfort On the Nankin the repair gang set to work in the engine room closing the stop cocks that had been opened trying to scuttle the vessel, and then worked to restart the engines, activate the pumps and thereby save the vessel which became a “Prize Ship”. Later the remainder of the Indian crew and a few of the Lascars were brought back to the “Nankin” to work the vessel. Capt. Stratford and the other officers returned to the “Thor” at 8.00 pm, but the Chief Engineer was kept aboard and not seen again, and presumably travelled with the ship to Yokahama later.
Although at the time we were totally unaware who had been attacking us, it was in fact the German Surface Raider “Thor” under the command of Korvetten-kapitan Gumprich. The “Thor” 3,862 tons (ship 10) or called by the British Ship E, was the smallest of the German disguised merchant ships, termed by them a “Hilfs Kreuzer” and had set sail from Bordeaux on the 14th January 1942 on her second voyage. In her two voyages she would have accounted for almost 140,000 tons of allied shipping, a success rate only slightly second by 6,000 tons to the Atlantis.. Also she had been attacked on three separate occasions by British Armed Merchant Cruisers, and had beaten off HMS Alcantra and HMS Carnavon Castle and had sunk HMS Voltaire. She was armed with 6 x 15cm guns (5.9”) and had an Arado seaplane which could be set to take off and land only under reasonably calm conditions such as we had that day.. Gradually the Raider sailed towards us, and there were grappling nets and rope ladders to climb aboard. As we drew closer I looked intently at the low ship lying ahead, lit up and glowing bright amber in the late afternoon sunshine on the deep ultramarine blue sea. All along the decks were the young crew, mostly in their early twenties, dressed smartly in white shorts leaning over the rails, looking down over us. Nearly all were wearing a vest emblazoned in dark blue with the German eagle above a swastika in a circle, and the officers wore small white cotton forage caps with a swastika emblem at the end, and below that a circular red, white and blue naval insignia. About half the men wore neatly trimmed beards mostly reddish in colour. Above flying in the gentle breeze, was the white German naval ensign, a red cross with a black swastika in the middle of of a circle. From another mast also flew the standard gold and black striped German flag. Forehead were two 15cm guns which were normally concealed in a deck house. The seaplane was now on deck, and the fore mast had a lookout in the crows nest, but above him, there was yet another lookout with large binoculars who was perched and strapped into a swivel seat perched atop the upper mast . I have never ever seen another ship with a similar seated lookout arrangement. From under the bridge housing on rails were two heavy duty quick firing anti aircraft guns with very long thin barrels probably about 7cm in diam, pointing at us , but which were later slid and concealed below the bridge structure when out of action. Astern the two sets of 15cm guns were clearly visible, and when under way, they would be covered with wooden cladding with the words

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