[Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_
Dr. Karl Buenz, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line]
The cablegram of July 31 called on Dr. Buenz to carry out this contract. There was consultation at once with Boy-Ed for the location of the vessels to be supplied, merchant ships were chartered or purchased, then loaded, and despatched. The first to leave New York harbor was the _Berwind_. There was hesitancy among the conspirators as to who should apply for her clearance papers--documents of which Dr. Buenz protested he knew nothing. They finally told G. B. Kulenkampff, a banker and exporter, that the _Berwind_ was loaded with coal, and directed him to get the clearance papers. He swore to a false manifest of her cargo and got them. The _Berwind_ carried coal to be sure--but she also carried food for German warships, and she was not bound for Buenos Aires, as her clearance papers stated. Thus the United States, by innocently issuing false papers, made herself, on the third day of the war, a party to German naval operations.
The steamship _Lorenzo_ dropped down the harbor, ostensibly for Buenos Aires, on the following day, August 6, cleared by a false manifest, and bearing coal and food for German sailors. On these ships, and on the _Thor_ (from Newport News for Fray Bentos, Uruguay), on the _Heine_ (from Philadelphia on August 6 for La Guayra), on the _J. S. Mowinckel_ and the _Nepos_ (out of Philadelphia for Monrovia) and others Boy-Ed and Buenz had placed supercargoes bearing secret instructions. These men had authority to give navigating orders to the captains once they were outside the three-mile limit--orders to keep a rendezvous with German battleships by wireless somewhere in the Atlantic wastes.
The _Berwind_ approached the island of Trinidad and Herr Poeppinghaus, who was her supercargo, directed the captain to lie to. Five German ships, the _Kap Trafalgar_, _Pontus_, _Elinor Woerman_, _Santa Lucia_ and _Eber_, approached and the transfer of supplies started. It was interrupted by the British converted cruiser _Carmania_. She engaged in a brisk two-hour duel with the _Kap Trafalgar_ which ended only when the latter sank into the tropical ocean. The _Berwind_ meanwhile put the horizon between herself and the _Carmania_.