TALES of ships and the sea lie at the heart of Southampton’s maritime history but there is one story that has fascinated so many Hampshire Heritage readers.

Stories on these pages regularly send local people scurrying off to check out details and information about the subject that has captured their attention but a feature on the old German liner, Deutschland, caused quite a stir.

It all centred around an old postcard from the early 1900s showing the liner in a Southampton dry dock. The owner of the mystery card appealed to Hampshire Heritage to track down any information about the ship’s time in port.

This sparked a remarkable response as readers wrote in offering an explanation of why Deutschland docked in Southampton all those years ago.

Ron Hancock, one of Southampton’s most knowledgeable shipping experts, who works for Associated British Ports in the city, said: “When I read the story bang went my lunch-hour as I spent a happy time delving into our archives.

“It seems Deutschland arrived at Southampton at 2.30pm on July 21, 1906.

She is shown arriving from Dover and it looks like her master was a Captain Kaempff.

“If Deutschland was on a transatlantic voyage, she would have been on her way within 24 hours but on this occasion the liner remained in port until 12.30pm on August 22 and her next port-of-call was Hamburg.

“In other words she went home again, instead of crossing the Atlantic. So had she been damaged, or maybe involved in a collision somewhere? Just being refitted maybe? Or did she breakdown coming from Hamburg?

“Then I had a flash of memory! I remembered recently reading a biography of T.E.Lawrence where he wrote several letters to his mother whilst on his travels and there was a reference of him passing through Southampton Docks.

“Checking again, I discovered a letter from Lawrence, dated August 4, 1906, written from France saying he crossed the Channel from Southampton and ‘on going to the boat I passed Deutschland having her bows repaired as a sequel to a collision in Dover.’’ Another Southampton reader, Peter Pearce, takes up the liner’s story as in his collection of maritime memorabilia is an account of the collision and two other postcards of Deutschland.

“With 1,500 passengers and 1,200 bags of mail on board, the 16,502 ton liner made ready to sail from Dover at 11.35am on Friday, July 13, 1906,’’ said one history book in Peter’s collection.

“The order was given to go astern when chaos suddenly reigned when a hawser snapped triggering a violent chain reaction.

“According to witnesses the liner was caused inexplicably to go ahead instead of astern. Engines went full astern while anchors were subsequently let loose to stop the forward movement.

“In a matter of seconds Deutschland struck a granite pier a colossal blow, splitting the prow from rail to keel and metal plates were peeled back like an orange.’’ The passengers and mail were offloaded and the search began to find a place where repairs could be undertaken.

A tug named, Hector, took the ship in tow to Southampton.

“The port of Dover simply was too open and too treacherous for a ship the size of Deutschland to use.’’