The front page of The Day paper recently featured a great photo of the new figurehead just completed for the bow of the Coast Guard training ship Eagle. A wonderful article (“A New Eagle for the Eagle” by staff writer John Ruddy) about the project followed, along with some background information on the iconic vessel.

As I read the piece, I wondered how many people knew the part a local man once played in bringing that ship from post-WWII Germany across the Atlantic to its new permanent home in New London.

Growing up in Chicago, Edward Thomas Lowe showed himself a superb athlete, lettering in three high school sports while maintaining a four-year grade point average of 97%. Always active and curious, he found himself drawn into the engineering field upon graduation in 1939. That choice four years later empowered him to enlist in the United States Coast Guard in New London, where he would spend the next 22 years living in the area.

Ed Lowe, his wife, Millie, and their young family would make their home in Waterford during that time, where they would enjoy the Niantic River and a close-knit Mago Point community.

Ed’s time in the Coast Guard was memorable with trips to the North and South Poles as well as teaching electrical systems and metallurgy at the Coast Guard Academy. But there was one assignment that stood apart from all others in his notable career.

Ed Lowe would be handpicked along with nine others in 1946 to travel to war-torn Germany and bring a sailing ship by the name of “Horst Wessel” (later to be christened “Eagle”) to America as a prize of war. It was that assignment that occupied most of the telephone conversation I was fortunate to have had with him a number of years ago.

“Captain McGowan (at the Coast Guard) called me into his office one day not long after the war had ended and said he wanted me as his electrician on an upcoming assignment in Germany,” Lowe began. “He singled out 10 of us for this mission, six enlisted men and four officers. It seemed to take forever to get over there, but we enlisted did have the distinction of being the first to see that poor ship lying in the mud of the bombed-out Bremerhaven dock. I took many pictures that day and got the feeling this was going to be quite a project.”

Training ship

The Horst Wessel had been built in 1936 as a training ship for the German navy. It was named after a man who had been an early leader in the Nazi party but had been murdered in 1930. Because Horst Wessel had allegedly been shot by Communists (mortal enemies of the Nazis) the Nazi propaganda machine anointed him a martyr to their cause.

Wessel had also written the lyrics to the Nazi party anthem that bore his name. The stirring “Horst Wessel Song” required patriotic Germans to perform the Nazi salute while listening or singing.

Hitler had an elaborate memorial built at his gravesite which became a focus of pilgrimage for many of the party faithful. (Further historic research into Mr. Wessel’s character and behavior would reveal a much less flattering story.)

To honor him further, a beautifully designed steel sailing ship was commissioned in his name.

The Coast Guard captain charged with bringing that ship to America was Gordon McGowen. In 1960 he wrote a book titled “The Skipper and the Eagle,” detailing that experience. It told of the maiden voyage of that resurrected ship after the war under a new name and a new flag.

The Nazi swastika was removed from beneath the bowsprit, but the original eagle figurehead remained. The Stars and Stripes now flew above its deck. Many of the earlier German crew remained on board to assist the short-handed American sailors with their mission to bring this three-masted bark safely across the seas to her new home.

Captain McGowan and his handpicked team arrived in Germany and began to assess the task at hand.

“That next morning (after we arrived) I got my first look at the Horst Wessel,” McGowan writes. “She lay at a bombed-out shipyard in Bremerhaven amid the ugly skeletons of shattered buildings and mountainous heaps of rubble. Her stately masts canted drunkenly to starboard, as she rested on the bottom of a narrow waterway at low tide.

“Her gray sides were smeared with stains, the paint on her yards and masts blistered and cracked. Raised metal lettering on each side of the quarterdeck informed the world that this was the Horst Wessel, a ship of the dead Nazi navy.

“I marveled at the towering heights of the mainmast which stood 148 feet above the waterline and tried to imagine what this bedraggled guttersnipe, with rust streaks and dirt, would look like with a fresh coat of paint and a new suit of sails. Now she was totally out of commission and her yards were bare,” the new American skipper lamented as he pondered the herculean task that lay before him.

Capable captain

McGowan proved to be a resourceful and capable captain and did deliver the Eagle safely to New London. Determined that the outfitting of the ship for the journey would come at no expense to the American taxpayer, McGowan managed to scavenge up all the necessary materials (which included a new diesel engine) to ready the ship for its 4,900-mile journey.

The Eagle departed Germany on May 30, 1946, with a crew of 111 men, 49 Germans and 62 Americans, far fewer that the 200 sailors the ship normally required. Included in that number was former Waterford resident Ed Lowe.

“After great effort the ship was made ready, and we finally managed to get underway,” Mr. Lowe related in our telephone conversation. “The trip was generally a pleasant one, that is, until we got close to Boston near the end of our journey when, of all things, a hurricane hit us. We really had no way around it as it was going to be a problem regardless of where we went and given that we had a mission to deliver the ship as quickly as possible to the Coast Guard, Captain McGowan and German captain, Barthold Schnibbe, made the decision to sail right through it.”

Captain McGowan recounted that harrowing experience in his book with great pride, noting how his multinational crew reacted so bravely and efficiently.

“They were being tested and they looked good under stress ... and that ship ... why, she was steady as a church,” he reported.

It was obvious from what Captain McGowan wrote in his book and Ed Lowe confirmed in our conversation that the Germans and the Americans on board got along very well together despite the war having been over for such a short time. Not only did the two captains consult with each other on a regular basis, but members of the two crews developed many positive relationships as well.

Unforgettable moment

“One German sailor (I would say he was maybe 21 years of age) and I had worked closely together as electricians on the voyage and sometimes when not on duty we would sit on the bow and just talk,” Chief Lowe related. “After we sailed through that storm and reached New York where the Germans were to be dropped off, something happened that I will never forget. As the tugboat came out in the harbor to take them off in groups, the Germans stood ramrod straight in their uniforms as their names were called out.

“This one young German that I got to know quite well noticed me and I nodded to him in recognition. But, unlike most of his countrymen who were at all times very proper, he broke ranks and came running in my direction, offering an outstretched hand. He told me he thought I was a gentleman and that he was very sorry he had to go so soon.

“I have never forgotten that. I was in the Coast Guard for 22 years and saw a lot of things, had a lot of great experiences. I am almost 93 years old now, but I have never forgotten that moment,” Mr. Lowe concluded.

Edward Thomas Lowe died on Nov. 22, 2017, while living in North Stonington with family members. This local man who played such a key role in bringing the ship Eagle to America was 96 years old.

Jim Littlefield is a retired history teacher in East Lyme who has written two local history books and two historical novels. His columns can also be found in the Post Road Review.