An English King, a Nazi Admiral & the Truth Behind History's Most Legendary Ghost Ship: The Flying Dutchman

 


        Captain Henrick Van der Decken is in the grips of a drunken rage.  Again.

It is the year 1641 and Van der Decken is at the helm of The Flying Dutchman, a ship in the employ of the Dutch East India Company.  He is desperate to get back home to Amsterdam as quickly as possible and to cash in his lucrative cargo of exotic spices from the far east.

Some say he is driven by greed; some by his love for a woman back home and some say he is fueled solely by a combination of alcohol and madness.  Whether driven by his love for a woman, money or for the bottle, what Van der Decken doesn’t know at that moment is that because of his rash actions both he and the members of the crew of The Flying Dutchman are destined to never return home again.  

The Flying Dutchman is about to spend all eternity as a ghost ship manned by a crew of spirits condemned to sail the high seas forever and ever.

Disregarding all thoughts of safety, Van der Decken decides to order his crew to immediately sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the very tip of Africa in the midst of stormy weather and rough seas.

His crewmen grumble at this order and as the weather worsens they eventually refuse to sail the ship around the Cape fearing that the ship will capsize in the rough water.  They urge Van der Decken to turn back but he refuses.

Some members of the crew attempt to mutiny and take control of The Flying Dutchman away from Captain Van der Decken, but out of fear of the Captain’s violent drunken rage and ruthlessness many members of the crew still remain loyal to Van der Decken despite their misgivings.

The maritime world during the Age of Exploration (roughly from 1450 to 1850) was a brutal, ruthless and hyper-violent world.  And experienced ship’s captains like Van der Decken were usually among the most ruthless and violent of all.  They had to be that way to maintain order and keep control aboard the cramped, filthy quarters of their sailing vessels during the long, arduous and hazardous journeys.  Shipping circa 1700 was about profit not compassion.

Soon, the would-be mutiny is put down by force and Van der Decken orders each one of the mutineers summarily executed (dismembered too according to some accounts) and thrown overboard.

Van der Decken despite the mutiny and deteriorating weather conditions presses on and once again attempts to sail around the Cape of Good Hope.

“God Damn it!  As the Devil is my witness,” the Captain vows, “I will sail around the Cape even if it takes until doomsday!”

Well, the Devil hears Van der Decken’s oath and he appears in the stormy sky directly above The Flying Dutchman.  Just before a fierce gale begins to blow Satan damns The Flying Dutchman for all eternity and condemns Van der Decken and his crew to sail forever around the world as a ghost ship seeking in vain to arrive home.  After Satan appears the strong winds and rough seas do in fact capsize and sink The Flying Dutchman killing all hands including Captain Van der Decken.


        For more than four centuries sailors on the high seas, and people along the shoreline all across the world have reported sightings of the infamous ghost ship The Flying Dutchman.  There are many variations on the origin story of the legend behind the cursed ghost ship The Flying Dutchman, but broadly speaking, most run along the same lines as the story written above, and all are in agreement that a Dutch Captain named Henrick Van der Decken from either the mid seventeenth or early eighteenth century is to blame for the appearance of the spectral ghost ship.

Some versions of the legend have the fate of The Flying Dutchman being sealed when the captain plays an ill advised game of dice with the devil for his soul in the North Sea.  This idea behind the origin of The Flying Dutchman gained quite a bit of traction during the 19th century as it was used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as the inspiration behind a ghost ship in his famous narrative poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the narrator sees a phantom ship at sea where the figures of Life and Death play at a game of dice for his soul.

Most often The Flying Dutchman is sighted in bad weather and a sighting of the ghost ship is considered to be a bad omen and a harbinger of someone’s impending death.  There have been sightings of the ghost ship all across the world for nearly the last five-hundred years, though most commonly, The Flying Dutchman has been seen prowling the waters around the southern tip of Africa near the Cape of Good Hope where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet and where Captain Van der Decken and the devil forever condemned the ship to its ghostly existence.

On July 11, 1881 King George V of England (at that time merely Prince George) was on a ship named the Bacchante sailing between Melbourne and Sydney Australia as part of a three year tour the young Prince was then taking around the world.

The future King George V, along with dozens of others aboard the Bacchante, had one of the most verifiable and reliable sightings of The Flying Dutchman ever recorded in history!  King George wrote in his journal:

 “At 4 a.m. The Flying Dutchman crossed our path.  A strange red light, as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came upon the port bow.”

King George V

        Most reports of sightings of The Flying Dutchman describe the ghost ship in exactly the same manner as King George V.  The phantom ship is described as being housed within a glowing translucent light or orb, usually red, and is reported as making absolutely no noise whatsoever as it passes within yards of other ships or of the coastline.

Oddly enough, King George V is not the only notable person from history to have had a firsthand encounter with The Flying Dutchman.  During the Second World War Nazi Admiral Karl Donitz reported that while on patrol in command of a German U-boat off the coast of Africa, he sighted The Flying Dutchman, which he described as a glowing red sailing ship suspended in mid-air, not unlike the description written by King George V in 1881.

Dontiz’s sighting of The Flying Dutchman is particularly interesting because he would eventually rise to command of the entire German U-boat fleet during World War Two and  would be appointed the second and final leader of the Third Reich during the final days of the war in May of 1945 after Hitler commited suicide in his bunker.  Donitz reported, in his capacity as commanding Admiral of the U-boat fleet, that all throughout the war he received many reports from U-boat captains of sightings and even near collisions with The Flying Dutchman from in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope mostly in the middle of the night.

Karl Donitz would live until the age of 89 and pass away in December of 1980.  He would maintain until the very end of his life that both what he saw, and The Flying Dutchman itself were in fact very real.  

Admiral Karl Donitz
        

World War Two seems to be the last time in history that The Flying Dutchman made any verifiable appearances.  Not only did Nazi admirals and captains see the ghost ship but sighings of The Flying Dutchman were also recorded in after-action reports from the Royal Navy and the British SAS.

Countless works of art and literature have immortalized the legend of The Flying Dutchman for all time.  Most prominent among these works are Richard Wagner’s famous opera about the legendary ghost ship and its appearance in Disney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean movie series alongside Johnny Depp.

Perhaps scientists are correct when they discount all sightings of The Flying Dutchman as the result of sailors under stress seeing mirages on the water or of light refraction causing optical illusions to appear before the eyes of inexperienced sea-farers.  Maybe, the legend of The Flying Dutchman is the stuff of overactive imaginations and does best belong relegated to the fantasy world of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Or perhaps, somewhere out there at night, the ghost of Captain Van der Decken and his crew still prowl the rough waters around the Cape of Good Hope forever seeking to return home.


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