HAPAG career
HAPAG registered Prinz Oskar at Hamburg. Her code letters were RMVL. In June 1903 she began her maiden voyage, which was from Hamburg to Brazil.
From 10 October 1903 Prinz Oskar's route was between Genoa in Italy and New York via Naples.[1] By 1905 it included a call at Palermo in Sicily on westbound voyages only.[2] On 5 June 1904 Olivia Langdon Clemens, wife of author Mark Twain, died in Italy. On 28 June Twain embarked on Prinz Oskar at Naples to bring her body home to New York.[3]
In August 1904 HAPAG announced that from 1 October its steerage fares from New York would be $15 to Naples and Genoa, and $16 to Trieste in Italy and Fiume in Austria-Hungary (now Rijeka in Croatia).[4] On 6 September 1904 Prinz Oskar left New York on a crossing to Italy. When she reached Naples on 22 September a passenger, Romulo Alcivar, shot her Master, Captain Dugge, and another passenger, Frank Shattuck. Both victims survived, but Dugge was wounded in the mouth, and Shattuck had a bullet in his left shoulder. Alcivar was overpowered and taken to a Lunatic asylum.[5] Prinz Oskar's Chief Officer took command, and the ship's doctor, and a doctor from among the passengers, treated Captain Dugge.[6] Shattuck continued his voyage to Naples.[7][8]
On a westbound crossing in January 1906 a storm in the North Atlantic loosened some of the rivets on the port side of Prinz Oskar's hull, causing a leak in one of her holds. The leak was about 5 ft above the waterline, abreast of the forward part of her superstructure. Seawater damaged hundreds of boxes of macaroni and several thousand lemons in her cargo, and her pumps were run continually to minimise the water in the damaged hold. The storm also damaged her steam-powered steering engine. Her crew used her manual steering gear until her engine department completed the steering engine's repair. She reached New York on 11 January, four days late.[9]
Prinz Oskar carried migrants to the USA. On one crossing in March 1906 she landed 1,102 people at Ellis Island.[10] On 16 April on her next crossing she landed 1,105 people.[11]
On 22 September 1906 Prinz Oskar inaugurated a new HAPAG route to the ports of the Río de la Plata. In January 1908 HAPAG announced that from that May, Prinz Adalbert and Prinz Oskar would serve a route to Brazil.[12]
By September 1910 Prinz Oskar's route was between Hamburg and New York.[13] Also by 1910, Prinz Oskar was equipped with submarine signalling and wireless telegraphy. By July 1911 she was sailing to Philadelphia, reportedly from Bremen.[14] By 1913 Prinz Oskar's wireless call sign was DDO. By 1914 Prinz Adalbert and Prinz Oskar served a North Atlantic route between Hamburg and Philadelphia, sometimes with an intermediate call at Emden.[15]
Collision with City of Georgetown
On the night of 1–2 February 1913 Prinz Oskar left Philadelphia carrying 30 passengers in steerage and three in first class. About half-past midnight she was emerging from the Delaware Breakwater when her watch sighted the four-masted cargo schooner City of Georgetown near the Five Fathom Bank lightship. The liner put her engines full astern and both ships changed course, but three minutes later the wooden schooner struck her port bow. The schooner lost all four of her masts and began to settle by her bow. City of Georgetown's Master and crew launched a dory and abandoned ship, with four men in the boat, and the other four in the water clinging to the boat. The schooner sank within minutes.[16]
Prinz Oskar lowered a lifeboat, with which City of Georgetown's crew was rescued. Prinz Oskar developed a list from water entering the hole in her bow. She turned back and anchored off Gloucester City, New Jersey to await a berth to disambark her passengers and unload her cargo, before being repaired.[16]
