10.10.1936 Southern Ocean, Heard Island 405th. day at sea
The remaining portion of the voyage through the Southern Ocean remained uneventful. Occasional snow showers and storms came and went. When the weather permitted the aircraft would be catapulted for reconnaissance flights.
On 19.9. the first court martial was held aboard for 2 ratings which broke into the ship’s canteen. Mtr.II Baron and Mtr.Gfr. Beyer were both found guilty and sentenced to 40 days imprisonment, demotion to the rank of Mtr and transfer to the supply ship Altmark.
On 3.10. Schiff 30 approaches Heard Island early in the morning. The Altmark, Ehrenfels, and Reichenfels come into view, after exchanging recognition signals the Ehrenfels comes alongside Schiff 30 to begin loading the cargo bound for the Spanish Nationalist Heer after loading the specified cargo which included the ship’s 4 Heinkel He 60c aircraft Schiff 30 took aboard from the Ehrenfels fresh provisions, ammunition, torpedoes, 2 Heinkel He 114b aircraft and several tons of stores. At 1800 hrs. on the 4.10. the Ehrenfels departed for Spanish Waters. The Altmark comes alongside and Schiff 30 begins to take on diesel fuel and lubricating oils and the Luftwaffe personnel began to assemble the 2 Heinkel He 114b aircraft. The following day the master of the Reichenfels Captain Wolf Dietrich is informed that the ship is being taken in for naval service and he is commissioned as Korv.Kpt(S) the deck officers are commissioned as L.z.S(S) through Kplt(S) the petty officers and ratings are given their appropriate ranks. To augment the crew of the Reichenfels 2 officers, 10 Port U.O./U.O, and 40 ratings of all career tracks were sent aboard. At 1300 hrs. the Reichenfels was commissioned into the Kriegsmarine. Work began to try and install armament however when the first 15cm was put on the deck it began to buckle, therefore Kapitan.z.S Hartmann and Korv.Kpt.(Dipl-ing) Sonntag decided to send the ship back to Germany to have the vessel rebuilt after the capture of the Spanish gold ships. On 6.10. the Altmark departs for naval square 2121 JM. The last 2 days are spent training the crew and conducting gunnery exercises. After a conference was held in the early morning of 10.10. to discuss the details of the operation Reichenfels departed at 0815 hrs.
At 1030 hrs. Schiff 30 weighs anchor. For the crew of Schiff 30 their hour had come and the raids which would gain them and their ship eternal fame were about to begin.......................
