Aud (ship)

Aud was the cover name of a German ship, "Libau", that carried arms to Ireland as part of the preparation for the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916.cite book|last=Pollard|first=H.B.C.|title=Secret Societies of Ireland, Their Rise and Progress|publisher=Kessinger|date=2003|pages=page 147|isbn=0766154793|url=http://books.google.ie/books?id=IF5xjYKxwBkC&pg=PA147&dq=aud+german+ship+ireland&sig=ACfU3U0RRdn8TxC7YEea8e28iWfohtP8oQ]

Introduction

Masquerading as the Aud, an existing Norwegian vessel of similar appearance, she set sail from the Baltic port of Lubeck on April 9 1916, under the Command of Karl Spindler,and his crew of twenty two men, all of whom were volunteers.The Aud, laden with an estimated 20,000 rifles, 1000,000 rounds of ammunition, 10 machine guns, and explosives, evaded patrols of both the British 10th Cruiser Squadron, and local Auxiliary patrols.

After surviving violent storms off Rockall, the Aud arrived in Tralee Bay on April 20. There they were due to meet with Roger Casement and others, with Casement having been landed nearby by U-19. Due to a combination of factors, the transfer of arms did not take place. The Aud, attempting to escape the area, was trapped by a blockade of British ships. Captain Spindler allowed himself to be escorted towards Cork Harbour, in the company of Acacia class sloop HMS Bluebell. The German crew then scuttled the ship.cite news|url=http://archives.tcm.ie/thekingdom/2006/04/13/story20147.asp|title=Black night in Ballykissane|date=2006-04-13|publisher=The Kingdom|accessdate=2008-07-01]

Karl Spindler

At this point Roger Casement and his companions who had been landed by the submarine U-19 in Kerry had been captured in an old ringfort or rath, between Ardfert and Tralee .The car-load of Volunteers who were supposed to meet Spindler had crashed, many miles away, near Kenmare so there was no hope of an organised transfer of arms. With Spindler and his crew on a ship with no radio or other means of communicating their plight the poorly organised gun-running plan was nearing an end.The Aud, was the 1062ton220 x 32 x 12 ft, former SS Castro of the Wilson Line of Hull, England. This ship was captured by the German Navy in the Kiel Canal,at the beginning of World War One in August 1914.

Renamed the Libau, she remained inactive until 1916, when designated as the vessel to carry a cargo of arms to Ireland, to aid the 1916 Easter Rising.

The 'Aud' Rifles

A selection of the rifles recovered from the Aud exist in various museums in Britain and Ireland, -among these are the Cork Public Museum in Fitzgeralds Park,Cork, A Museum in Lurgan County Armagh, The National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, and the Imperial War Museum, in London. It is agreed tht the majority of these rifles are the model known as the Mosin Nagant 1891,captured in the German rout of Russian forces in the Battle of Tannenburg. These rifles have been referred in various publications as being 'outmoded and out of date' [cite book|last=Hackey|first=Thomas|coauthors=Hernon, McCaffrey|title=The Irish Experience: A Concise History|publisher=M. E. Sharpe|location=Ireland|date=1996|pages=Page 157|isbn=1563247925|url=http://books.google.ie/books?id=40eTvcIfFZcC&pg=PA157&dq=german+ship+Aud+ireland&sig=ACfU3U17ps-nlRNYp1faLiRJSo_KZCJlnw] - when in fact they were comparable with many of the leading makes of the era. They were a rifle with a magazine, which enabled the owner to pre-load 5rounds from a clip, and then fire in reasonably rapid succession. The Mosin-Nagant was the first Russian rifle to incorporate the ideas of a small calibre high-velocity magazine rifle, and replaced the earlier single-shot Berdan rifle in the hands of Tsarist troops.

tock of Mosin-Nagant 1891

The Mosin-Nagant rifles were known as 'three-line rifles' which referred to their calibre. A 'line' was approximately .10in, so the calibre of the guns was .30in. After the Russian revolution the Soviets adopted the metric system, and thereafter this calibre was referred to as 7.62mm. The Rifles on the Aud were of the type 'Russkaya 3-lineinaya vintovka o1891g'. - (Russian 3-line rifle, model of the year 1891). This was the basic model, fully stocked except for a few inches of muzzle to which a socket bayonet could be fitted. Although obsolete elsewhere, the Russian placed great reliance on the socket bayonet, which was intended to be carried in a permanently fixed attitude. Bayonets for these guns were carried on board the Aud.

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