The day Hitler’s flagship yacht docked in Hull
NOT THE DESTINATION HER OWNER HOPED FOR: Hitler’s flagship yacht Grille during her eight-day stay in Hull
Now & Then, a column by Angus Young
The story of Hitler’s luxury yacht Grille
Over two consecutive nights in May 1941 nearly 400 people were killed in what would prove to be the most devastating bombing raids experienced in Hull during the Second World War.
The Luftwaffe’s attacks on the city – and in particular its docks – were carried out as Germany’s military leaders continued to plan the invasion of Britain if a negotiated surrender could not be secured first.
The plan – known as Operation Sea Lion – envisaged a victorious Adolf Hitler sailing up the Thames before accepting the British government’s surrender in a ceremony in Whitehall.
However, the RAF’s success in the Battle of Britain would change German minds. Unable to establish air superiority, focus was switched to the Russian front and the invasion plans were shelved.
Ironically, the only significant German military hardware to ever reach Britain intact was the vessel Hitler intended to be on during that triumphant Thames cruise. Less than two years after the end of the war, she limped into Hull’s Alexandra Dock under tow in what must have been a bittersweet moment for those who witnessed it. This is the story of Grille.
Built in 1935 for the Kriegsmarine, the 3,490-tonne steam ship was designed as both a flagship state yacht for Hitler and other senior figures in the Nazi regime and as an auxiliary minelayer complete with three naval guns and eight anti-aircraft guns. The vessel was also initially fitted with experimental high-pressure steam turbines and a boiler system intended to be tested in sea trials before being installed in new warships.
Ultimately, the boilers could not provide the manoeuvrability required by destroyers and the idea was shelved, leaving Grille with a power source which was unique but technically complex to operate.
With a crew of 248, she was the largest vessel of its kind in the world and the ceremonial flagship of Hitler’s naval forces. In this role, she carried the German state delegation to the coronation of King George VI in 1937, visiting Southampton and Spithead as part of the voyage.
Hitler himself made frequent use of Grille, often spending up to four nights onboard during short cruises despite having a reported aversion to being at sea. The ship was used to entertain VIP guests, including Mussolini and foreign ambassadors, as well as reviewing the growing Nazi fleet in the pre-war years.
At Hitler’s insistence, Grille’s hull was painted white with gold trim on the bow and stern while the funnel was bright yellow. He referred to her as ‘The White Swan of the Baltic’ while the crew wore white uniforms.
POWER: The commanding officer’s room aboard Grille
A myth would later develop around the ship’s supposedly luxurious fittings and fixtures, perhaps fuelled by the fact that famous German architect Fritz Breuhaus designed its interior having previously worked on the luxury liner Bremen and the interior of the ill-fated airship Hindenburg.
The reality was somewhat different. While the ship did feature a small number of well-appointed cabins the size of small hotel suites as well as rooms for up to 35 guests, it was also equipped for military use. When war broke out she was deployed as a minelayer and patrol vessel in the Baltic Sea tasked with spotting enemy merchant ships and notifying nearby U-boats.
Grille later switched to minelaying in the North Sea as an early part of Operation Sea Lion, providing defensive cover in anticipation of a counter-attack by British naval forces.
In 1942 her role changed again when she was taken out of frontline military service to become the floating headquarters of the commander of German naval forces in occupied Norway. By then, her distinctive colour scheme had been changed to wartime grey.
Germany’s U-boat attacks were controlled from her dining room. Later, with the war entering its final stages, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz directed the operations of the entire navy from the same saloon.
By then 400 men were crammed onboard operating nearly 200 high-powered radio transmitters and receivers. The ship even had its own purpose-built automated telephone exchange with direct lines to Hitler’s headquarters in Berlin.
Reports suggest Donitz formally announced the death of Hitler on the deck of Grille on May 1, 1945, and, acting on the late Fuhrer's orders, also announced he had assumed leadership of Germany and its fighting forces. What is known for certain is that on May 17 following the German surrender a British Navy boarding party took command of Grille to arrange an escorted passage of five surface vessels and 15 U-boats to Scotland.
With both engines not working having been deliberately sabotaged before the surrender and only one boiler in operation, Grille was towed to Rosyth with British officers commanding her German crew. She was later towed to Hartlepool and berthed in a coal dock. A year later the Admiralty put her up for sale.
By then, Grille had become a visitor attraction. At a charge of a shilling for adults and sixpence for children, half-hour tours of the vessel were arranged with proceeds being split between the local Sea Cadets and the Mission to Seamen.
Those hoping for a glimpse of Nazi-era luxury were left disappointed. Local reporter Brian Belshaw wrote: “On the door of a cabin not more than a few yards away from the suite which Hitler occupied there is a large white label. On it is written: ‘Leading Stoker Evans’.
ADVANCED: British sailors in the ship's all-electric galley
“I have never met Leading Stoker Evans but I know how he felt when he boarded Grille as one of her British prize crew. I know how he made the best of those remarkable circumstances and with what satisfaction he planted that boldly written proclamation on the door which might have been opened by one of Hitler’s special guests – perhaps even at this moment adjusting his earphone at Nuremberg.
“That is Grille today. Once she was as German as the sign of the Swastika but the inimitable British matelot has left his mark. Any sinister glamour she ever had is gone.”
Belshaw found Hitler’s cabin courtesy of another hand-written label on paper headed On His Majesty’s Service. Inside was “a sound serviceable suite of furniture, a nice desk and a modest set of concealed lighting, but not much more.” Elsewhere, a cream piano caught his eye in the commanding officer’s cabin while the ship’s own barber shop retained its original chair.
Grille’s stay in Hartlepool ended in March 1947 when she set sail for Gibraltar en route for Genoa in Italy under the new ownership of a Lebanese textile tycoon who had reportedly paid £357,000 to use it as his own private yacht.
It had taken nine months to carry out necessary repairs to get Grille seaworthy again but the ship continued to suffer mechanical problems and an oil fire in its engine room shortly after leaving the port put one of its two engines out of action. She was towed back to Hartlepool for repairs before setting off again, only to experience more engine problems off Spurn Point where a call for assistance was made.
A tug from Hull located Grille and towed her into port where the fault with her oil-fired boiler system was diagnosed – she was loaded with the wrong grade of oil because of a mistake in translating the ship’s instruction manuals written in German.
An account of the mix-up was given in a newspaper interview in 1993 by engineer Ray Doyle, who carried out some of the repairs in Hartlepool before sailing on the voyage.
He recalled: “As on all ships, there was quite a library of books and drawings supplied by the builders covering all the electrical circuits, all the pipework which is colour-coded, the position of all tanks and the capacity for fuel oil, lubricating oil, fresh water, distilled water and ballast tanks.
“All the nameplates on the main and auxiliary switchboards, motor pumps and starters were engraved in beautiful German Gothic-style lettering so we employed an interpreter with the idea of getting all the hundreds of nameplates re-made in English. Then, the millionaire from Tripoli who eventually bought the ship gave explicit instructions that nothing had to be changed, not even the nameplates.
“This made our work almost impossible until the interpreter came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea. He bought hundreds of tie-on luggage labels and had the required instructions printed on them in English. Then he tied the labels onto everything in the engine and boiler rooms. The luggage labels made the engine room look like a decorated Christmas tree.”
EYE-CATCHING: Grille in Hartlepool. Picture credit: Derek Hinds / Tom Illingworth
Doyle revealed the failure to accurately translate one of the German instruction manuals led to the wrong fuel oil being ordered before setting off. Instead of using a light grade for the unique specially-designed boilers, a heavier grade normally used in British ships was taken onboard.
The engineer recalled: “The boilers were flashed up resulting in a smoke-screen as from a destroyer in wartime.” The burning oil triggered huge belching plumes of black smoke from the funnel and a small fire in the engine room.
With supplies of the correct oil available in Hull, Grille was towed into Alexandra Dock under the direction of Humber Pilot Vince Howard who took the wheel to ensure she did not come to grief on the estuary’s sandbanks.
Vince had been at sea since he was 16, initially in the Merchant Navy before being called up for service in the Royal Navy the week before the Second World War started, having become a Humber Pilot four years earlier.
His own wartime career included minesweeping in the Channel and the Suez Canal and radar duties onboard HMS Orion during the Battle of Cape Matapan off the coast Greece in 1941 when Allied naval forces comprehensively defeated the Italian Navy. On D-Day he was on a gunboat supporting the landings by the Green Howards and the East Yorkshire Regiment and later served as second in command of HMS Lamont, a landing ship loaned to the Australian Navy transporting thousands of soldiers up and down the Pacific in more than 20 operations against the Japanese.
His service in the Royal Navy was extended until April 1946 when he resumed his work as a Humber Pilot. Having safely berthed Grille in Alexandra Dock, Vince remained onboard as arrangements were made to discharge the engine fuel into a waiting barge and re-fill the tanks with the correct grade at one of the jetties at nearby Saltend. He would later regale regulars at the Crown and Anchor pub in Elstronwick he took on after his 43-year career at sea with tales of him sleeping in Eva Braun’s bed during Grille’s stay in Hull.
In fact, the boudoir supposedly used by Hitler’s mistress was another of the colourful myths about the ship’s pre-war days. While the vessel boasted an exact duplicate of Hitler’s suite, there is no official record of Braun ever having been onboard.
Overall, Grille spent eight days in Hull with the fuel bunkering operation at Saltend disrupted by poor weather. She eventually arrived in Genoa nearly two months later and was still under tow.
Engineer Doyle’s account of the remainder of the voyage records a catalogue of mechanical problems including further boiler and engine failures, shortages of drinking water and food, being battered by severe storms and a decision by most of the crew on stopping in Lisbon to accept an offer by the owner to pay for their immediate passage home.
Grille’s days as a privately-owned luxury yacht didn’t last long. By 1949 the ship sailed into New York and was sold for scrap to the North American Smelting and Refining Company two years later. Her final voyage to a scrapyard on the Delaware River was again under tow with the recovered metal being re-used in manufacturing items for America’s military. However some items were removed and sold to eagle-eyed souvenir hunters, including a white porcelain toilet bowl which ended up in a car repair garage in New Jersey.
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