This week in the war on 31 March 1940, the German auxiliary cruiser, Atlantis, set sail from Bremen for the open waters of the Atlantic. As a commerce raider, she had a dummy funnel and a variety of tricks to change her appearance, and also the appearance of her crew, who had multiple uniforms.
The ship was equipped with hidden guns, torpedo tubes and mine-laying capabilities. After steering north across the Arctic Circle, she veered south, crossed the equator, where she switched her ‘nationality’ from Russian to Japanese (both nations being neutral at the time) and rounded the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean. Finally, she entered the Pacific.
Under the command of her captain, Bernhard Rogge, she sank or captured over 20 ships, most notably the British cargo ship Automedon, where Rogge discovered a top-secret intelligence report on the strengths and weaknesses of British defences in Singapore and the Far East. Rogge dispatched the report to his embassy in Tokyo and hence to the Japanese.
On 22 November 1941, the Atlantis was discovered and sunk by the British heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire. The story of the Atlantis is the subject of the 1960 Italian-American war movie Under Ten Flags (in Italian: Sotto Dieci Bandiere). American film actor, Van Heflin, played the role of Bernhard Rogge.