The Emden-Ayesha adventure

Although nonfiction, this rousing firsthand account of wartime adventures reads like a novel and has proven appeal to a broad audience. Translated into English and serialized in the Naval Institute Proceedings in 1916, the book was written by the executive officer of the Emden , the legendary German raider of World War I South Seas fame. He devotes the first half of his story to a lively narrative description of the light cruiser's sinking of fifteen merchant ships and two allied warships by November 1914. The second half describes an incredible seven-month odyssey forced upon von Mucke and fifty of his men when their ship was destroyed by the HMAS Sydney . Stranded on an island in the Indian Ocean where they were sent to destroy a British wireless facility, they commandeer a small schooner, the Ayesha , and embark on a journey reminiscent of that undertaken by Captain Bligh and company. After surviving fierce storms in the ocean, an allied blockade in the Red Sea, and a Bedouin ambush in Arabia, the men finally arrive in Constantinople in May 1915 with their courage and unflappable manners intact. Armchair adventurers and combat veterans alike will appreciate von Mucke's rousing tale, which is introduced by a history professor at Walla Walla College in Washington who writes frequently about the Kaiser's navy.