Havighurst, Walter "Last Voyage"

Fictional treatment of the North German Lloyd liner COLUMBUS’ Dec. 1939 scuttling off Cape Hatteras when the ship was intercepted by the British in her attempt to break free of internment and return to Germany. Havighurst renames the vessel “NUREMBURG” and changes some details of the famed incident to fit the purposes of his short story, but this piece of fiction nonetheless rings true. What is most interesting about the short story, however, is Havighurst’s depiction of the German liner’s officers and crew as decent men, greatly pained indeed at the need to destroy a ship that all of them respect and love. America was of course still neutral in 1940, which probably accounts for Havighurst’s humane treatment of his German characters. Within a year or so such a sympathetic depiction would be impossible in print.