Texts and Research

USS Ticonderoga, formerly Camilla Rickmers, built in 1914 in Bremerhaven.

Sinking location of USS Ticonderoga, 30 September 1918: 43°05′N, 38°43′W, en route from Norfolk and New York to La Pallice.

Navy Service Card, 1898.

East Prussia was not a place that held on to people. Rudolf Alicke was born in December 1863 in Grünhaus near Gumbinnen – at least that is how it appears in later American records. Even his date of birth is not entirely stable; it varies by a few days in different documents. Such small shifts are typical of lives reconstructed across continents from official papers.

What is certain is that Rudolf left early. In a passport application he later stated that he emigrated in 1878 – at about fifteen years of age. Why a teenager would leave East Prussia cannot be answered with certainty. The region was economically fragile and largely agricultural, with limited prospects. Emigration was not an adventure; it was an option.

According to current research, Rudolf can plausibly be connected to an Alicke family from Grünhaus, although a definitive German birth or baptism record has not yet been located. The identification relies primarily on U.S. Navy documents that record his birthplace and family members. Siblings with the same place of origin are documented in Altona. The picture is coherent – but not complete. That gap, too, is part of his story.

In the United States, Rudolf consistently appears in technical roles: fireman, machinist, later Chief Machinist’s Mate in the U.S. Navy. His workplace was not the deck, but the engine room. Heat, coal dust, rotating shifts. In that environment, origin mattered little; competence did.

In 1898 he served aboard USS Petrel during operations in Manila Bay. By 1900 he was stationed at the naval base in Cavite in the Philippines, during the Philippine–American War. Daily life was less about dramatic heroism and more about maintenance, readiness, and physical strain in tropical conditions. Diseases such as malaria and dysentery were common. Whether Rudolf himself was affected is not documented, but the risk was part of reality.

Over Christmas 1901 he traveled to Germany and applied for a U.S. passport in Hamburg in January 1902. Notably, he remained in Germany for approximately nine months. This was more than a brief visit. His sister lived in Altona with her family, and other relatives were present in northern Germany. He may have considered a permanent return. In late August 1902 he went back to the United States and re-entered naval service. The records note the decision without explanation.

By 1915 Rudolf is documented in New Jersey as a machinist. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the Navy required experienced specialists. In 1918 he was assigned to USS Ticonderoga, a former German merchant vessel seized after the U.S. entered the war and converted for naval service.

During the night of September 29–30, 1918, Ticonderoga was attacked in the Atlantic by the German submarine U-152. After several hours of combat, the ship sank; only a small fraction of the more than 200 men aboard survived.

Accounts by survivors describe Rudolf Alicke in a striking final episode. As a native German speaker, he was reportedly taken aboard the submarine after the sinking to assist with translation between German and English. He was then returned to a raft. That raft was later lost at sea. Rudolf was not among the rescued.

He was posthumously decorated for his service. There is no grave; like many others, he was lost at sea.

What remains are records, entries, and a life without public monument. No estate, no direct descendants, no house bearing his name. Yet his biography reflects a generation of technical workers whose labor sustained the machinery of a transforming world – men who worked below deck, out of sight, and who rarely entered history by name.

A man from East Prussia who left early, seldom settled, and remained until the end where performance was required.