PRINZ EUGEN muetzenband/tallie

[11C]

Good evening Chaps,

nice thread and fabulous photos posted by John!!! Outstanding to say the least.

I do not have the book of Schmalenbach but remebering having had read in it about ten years ago. I'm sure to remember something was said about printed tallies. I need to contact a fellow collector to help me in this matter.

Can someone please clarify

a) how many German sailors were evidently approved to make the sail across the Atlantic toi the US and
b) how many German sailors were approved to sail her throught the Panama Canal (it was new to me that ANY Germans were on board there, not to speak about 540+ from post #13 ...

Rgds

Daniel

Wikipedia...

Service with the US Navy[edit]

USS Prinz Eugen passing through the Panama Canal in 1946.
On 27 May 1945, Prinz Eugen and the light cruiser Nürnberg—the only major German naval vessels to survive the war—were escorted by the British cruisers Dido and Devonshire to Wilhelmshaven. On 13 December, Prinz Eugen was awarded as a war prize to the United States, which sent the ship to Wesermünde.[65] The United States did not particularly want the cruiser, but it did want to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring it.[74] Her US commander, Captain Arthur H. Graubart, recounted later how the British, Soviet and US representatives in the Control Commission all claimed the ship and how in the end the various large prizes were divided in three lots, Prinz Eugen being one of them. The three lots were then drawn lottery style from his hat with the British and Soviet representatives drawing the lots for other ships and Graubart being left with the lot for Prinz Eugen.[75] The cruiser was commissioned into the US Navy as the unclassified miscellaneous vessel USS Prinz Eugen with the hull number IX-300. A composite American-German crew consisting of 574 German officers and sailors, supervised by eight American officers and eighty-five enlisted men under the command of Graubart,[76][77] then took the ship to Boston, departing on 13 January 1946 and arriving on 22 January.[65]

[Marine HJ]

All knowing Wikipedia. Second sentence of the quoted passage in the wiki article is containing already a mistake: what about the floating WW2 survivor "Kreuzer Leipzig"?

Sorry, don't want to be offensive. Let's have a look what Schmalenbach says how many of his fellow countrymen were on board. I personally doubt the number of 540.

Not sure which of the two wiki sources No 76 "Joe Slavick - Atlantis" or Number 77 is referring to the 540+.

Rgds

Daniel

[John R.]

I actually thought it was more like 300 German sailors, but need to find my Schmalenbach this weekend. John

[John R.]

Page from book.

[11C]

Here's another source....pg 34 (takes a little while to download)

574 possible tallies.....

http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/archpdf/ah194604.pdf

[John R.]

John,
Thanks a lot for your very informative and detailed answer. IF it is of any interest, I could send you a picture of a printed tally to post it here..

Best regards

Fechtmeister

Very interesting series of photos, thanks to Fechtmeister. As he already noted, the first is a post war reunion or souvenir tally. It is the next two that are truly interesting, especially the printed example. John

[John R.]

The photo of the two sailors is not post war/US crew. It is wartime due to the eagle on the uniform. No eagles in evidence after the war for the PE sailors. John

[John R.]

Based on these displays, I think there is no doubt that the printed example existed at the time the ship sailed with the US crew to the States. It also appears to me that the width (top to bottom) of the printed tally is larger than regulation black tally ribbons.

John

[Fechtmeister]

Thanks a lot for Posting the pictures, John!

The picture of the two sailors is dated before 5/1945. They were two Cousins, who both served on board of PG.
Best regards!

Fechtmeister

[Norm F]

It also appears to me that the width (top to bottom) of the printed tally is larger than regulation black tally ribbons.

John

When you compare them, Fechtmeister's printed example is definitely from the same source as the example posted previously by Markus so there's consistency there. (You can't evaluate the texture of the weave on these magnified low-resolution images but the font is clearly the same.)

I wonder how well that taller tally would have fit on the cap? (Not there there would have been much time to shop around.)

So I guess we're presuming they had a supply of Cellon private purchase tallies and quickly supplemented their numbers with these printed ones when they ran out?

Best regards,
---Norm

[John R.]

That is what I think, I do not think they wore them on their caps since they had the nice cellon ones anyway.

Very hard to figure out since the ribbon is non standard but clearly they had them.

It is possible they are post cruise and used at early reunions. Huge number of sailors who served in PE at one time or the other I suspect.

Maybe traded with the US sailors since the US sailors did not know the difference anyway?

There is an answer, we just do not know what that answer might be. All else is speculation.

John

[Norm F]

Here's another source....pg 34 (takes a little while to download)

574 possible tallies.....

http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/archpdf/ah194604.pdf

Wow, that's a fascinating and detailed article from 1946. 574 Germans on board from Bremerhaven to Boston, "most of the German deck crew, with the exception of a few leading petty officers, were shipped back to the fatherland..."

[Norm F]

Uploading the full article.

[Norm F]

the rest

By the way, the Germans were paid as civilian mariners during their time with the Americans. Not a lot, but paid.

John

$27 per month for enlisted, $34 to $64 per month for officers depending on rank.

[Norm F]

And this photo

The photo posted by John clearly shows the Cellon version of the tally in wear. One easy way to spot the difference is the distance between the "n" and "z" of "Prinz".