The Cruise of the Sea Eagle: The Amazing True Story of Imperial Germany's Gentleman Pirate

The adventures of Count Felix von Luckner’s three-masted sailing vessel that raided the high seas during the first ironclad sea war.

 (8 customer reviews)

Having majored in History in college, with an emphasis on WWI and WWII, I was surprised that I had never heard of Felix von Luckner. Now, having read the book, I am astonished. Felix von Luckner was the type of man legends are made of!

A true hero of the German Navy, this book details the adventures of von Luckner as the capitan of the Seeadler (Sea Eagle) and highlights the life of a man who managed to become one of the most feared raiders on the sea --- and who did so without carelessly taking lives.

With sea battles, storms, deck parties, cross-dressing, and more -- this story truly embodies the thought that 'Truth is stranger than fiction'!

I definitely recommend this book. A really great read!

You just don't think of three masted square riggers as active combat ships in World War I. World War I was a time of machine guns, air planes, tanks, and the big battleships at Jutland, not of three masted men of war.

But the Seeadler (Sea Eagle in English) was just that, a three masted sailing ship that sailed for Germany in 1916/1917 attacking and sinking eighteen Allied ships ships. Amazingly they did this with the killing of only one Allied seaman.

It's also surprising that some of the ships they sank were armed steamers with steel hulls. As one reviewer quoted on the flyleaf of the book says, this book "would make several films if audiences could believe it all really happened, which it did."

This is one of the more fascinating stories to come out of World War I.

This book talks about a time and place that is rarely covered by historians. In World War I the Germans were a far more honorable enemy than in WWII. This story exemplifies that. Imagine a Prussian aristocrat who goes to war determined to uphold the rules of war and maritime law. Captain Luckner ends up capturing and sinking over a dozen allied ships, but only kills one person. And he does it in a captured American clipper ship.