Having recently visited the USCG Cutter Barque Eagle, I can wholeheartedly agree with the title of  Tido Holtkamp’s book,  A Perfect Lady: A Pictorial History of the Coast Guard Barque Eagle, which has recently gone into its second printing.   The ship is indeed a perfect lady.  Holtkamp has far more experience with the ship than most. He sailed on her as a cadet when she was the Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel, a German school ship training German naval cadets, just as the Eagle is used to train US Coast Guard cadets today.

Tido Holtkamp tells tales of days when the Eagle, “America’s Tallship” was a Nazi naval ship named Horst Wessel.

When the U.S. Coast Guard’s cutter Eagle sails into New London harbor at 10 o’clock this morning, Tido Holtkamp will be at the dock waiting for his ship to come in. The tall ship may be the Coast Guard’s now but Holtkamp, like many sailors who have served on her, still feels a sense of ownership of the vessel. When he knew her, however, she belonged to Germany and was named Horst Wessel, after the Nazi storm trooper leader who was named after the Germany’s national anthem under Hitler.

Holtkamp was one of 200 crewmembers aboard the Horst Vessel. The men slept where they ate, in a large open room on each of the ship’s four decks. By day, they sat at folding tables and chairs, which were packed away at night to make room for hammocks. Every hammock was numbered so each person knew which one was his but, Holtkamp said, “they all smelled the same.”

When World War II ended, he applied for U.S. citizenship, living first in Brooklyn before settling down in Connecticut. In the 1950s, he faced a second draft and ended up serving in the Korean War, although that time it was as part of the American armed forces. Something else happened in the 1950s too.

In 1959, Holtkamp was driving over the bridge in New London on his way home from Mystic to Hartford when he looked down to see a familiar sight. “There was my ship!” he said.

After World War II, the victors claimed the spoils of war and the United States, after a little chat with Russia which was also eyeing the vessel, took the Horst Wessel. When Holtkamp saw it anchored in New London’s harbor, she’d been refitted for the Coast Guard and renamed Barque Eagle, but she was unmistakable.

Holtkamp couldn’t help himself. He drove down and asked permission to come aboard, which after hearing his story, the captain graciously granted. “Where I had been sleeping there was a coca cola machine!” Holtkamp recalled.

Holtkamp has been aboard the Eagle many times since then. He’s given tours and even sailed back over to Hamburg for a reunion with other German officers who served on the ship when it was the Horst Wessel.

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing the article along.