Retired Captain Gebhard Knull: Of escape, courage and pirates

“Starting with my first voyage, I experienced nearly everything that makes seafaring so exciting,” says Gebhard Knull, recounting his escape across the Baltic Sea on a small coaster in January 1945. “My father had the job in Königsberg, today’s Kaliningrad, of evacuating refugees on ships. He also sent my mother and us four brothers west on a coaster. That first night, I stood on the foredeck with my brother. When the lookout shouted, ‘Vessel four points on the port side,’ we saw a shadowy ship coming straight at us and ran from the foredeck. But the deck was so icy that we slipped and slid right to the place where the ship rammed us. We were lying on deck and could see the bow towering right over us!” the 87-yearold remembers.

Young Gebhard Knull was most impressed by the master at the time. “He reassured us all that nothing bad had happened, and that we could all go below deck. The ship was repaired in the Russian seaport town of Baltiysk, and in Gotenhafen (Gdynia), our mother was supposed to transfer to the ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ with her four sons. But she refused and would not be intimidated, so we stayed on board of the coaster – and she most likely saved our lives.” Because the “Wilhelm Gustloff” sank after being fired on by a Russian submarine on 30 January 1945. More than 10,000 people were on board, only 1,239 of whom survived. Mother Knull and her four sons arrived at Sassnitz after a four-week crossing on the coaster. All four brothers went on to became seafarers.

Tips from the father gained him respect

Gebhard Knull got his first professional tips from his father: “First of all, as a cabin boy, you have to cook and clean the galley! Remember: if the nooks and crannies of a room are clean, the whole room is clean. Second: there are no ‘ifs and buts’ on board. Third: there’s no such thing as ‘can’t’ – you can always find a way. And finally: keep your name in the conversation!” Gebhard Knull sums up that that last piece of advice has proven particularly valuable. Do you have an example? Master Knull laughs and says, “It happened later, at North German Lloyd. I was Second Officer on the ‘Birkenstein’ and responsible for the cargo. In Hamburg, we loaded beer barrels; in Antwerp, we added 30 cartons of pressed sponges. When we went to unload the cargo in New York, thousands of sponges swelled out at us. The barrels had come loose and damaged the cartons. We heaved the sponges out with a huge cloth and quickly brought them to the shed. In the afternoon, the master summoned me on deck and bawled me outbecause he’d found five sponges in the hatch. When he threatened to write me up for what happened, I blew my top and fired back: ‘If you report anything defamatory about me, we’ll see each other in court!’ We had a lively exchange of words until he suddenly turned to the first officer and said: ‘I’d like to see you do something like this! Good day, gentlemen.’ And then he disappeared. From then on, I enjoyed an excellent relationship with the master. The story spread all the way to the shipping company. I was now respected.”

Pirate attack!

In 1958, Gebhard Knull experienced his first pirate attack as a helmsman. “We were anchored with the ‘Buchenstein’ off Buenaventura in Colombia. The moon shone brightly, music wafted across from the entertainment district, and we were irritated that we had to keep watch. The master had told me to keep an eye on the mangrove forest opposite. A little later, a dugout canoe with eight men came out of the forest and headed straight for us. I sent the watchman to the foredeck with the order to drop the anchor hawse flap as soon as the first pirate tried to climb up. A short time later, I heard a dull plop as the guy fell into the water. The pirates turned around. I took a farewell potshot at them with the signal pistol, as a deterrent.” He got into a bit of trouble for that: “I wasn’t supposed to be on deck until departure for my own safety, because they had it in for me. Word had got around about the shooting.”

After the merger of HAPAG with Norddeutscher Lloyd created Hapag-Lloyd AG in 1970, Gebhard Knull sailed as a first officer until he received his appointment as master in 1973. “I was lucky enough to sail my first voyage on the ‘Birkenstein’, a freighter I really knew inside out.” Only the handover proved difficult. “As the youngest master, I was replacing the oldest master at Hapag-Lloyd at the time. He refused to hand over the ship to me for that very reason. I had no choice but to make it clear to him, in no uncertain terms, who had command of the ship from then on. It was a strange and wonderful feeling to suddenly be ‘the one in charge’.”

A textbook career

In 1975, master Knull became a nautical inspector, and four years later he was Vice President Operations at the U.S. Naviga agency (later Hapag-Lloyd America) in New York. Only then did he switch back to seafaring. At 1.90 metres tall, he sailed for five years on what was then the smallest container ship that Hapag-Lloyd had chartered to a Japanese shipping company. “That was the ‘Windward’, with 970 TEU. It went from Japan via Hong Kong to the west coast of Australia, Freemantle, and back again. I really enjoyed this route because I could be independent in every respect and was my own master. A textbook master’s experience!” says Knull. During this time, he documented the wind susceptibility and fuel consumption of the “Windward” by means of various tests. This earned him a change of ship when he handed over his “research results” in the boardroom. A short time later, he was given command of the “Berlin Express”, which was still under construction in Shanghai.