Initial post: Jun 26, 2012 1:57:56 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on Jun 26, 2012 2:07:36 AM PDT
Hagen Bahnemann says:
I thought that some readers might like to know more about my father.

Dad lived an adventures life. He first left his hometown of Hamburg in at the age of 13 as an apprentice aboard a one of the last great merchant sailing ship the "Pamir". Aboard this ship he learnt the ropes of sailing and eventually became a navigator. I recall the fantastic stories he told of rounding the Horn of Africa and the stormy passage of Cape Horn several times. The sea became a life long love of dads.

At just 17 he jumped ship in Manaus on the Amazon River and married a young native South American Indian.

From there he was called up to serve in the WW2. At 18, like so many men he saw that as a great chance for adventure. He volunteered in to the German army to avoid being conscripted into the navy. He went on to earn many medals before being taken prisoner of war in Africa.

Dad arrived in Australia at the age of 21 as a prisoner of war. After being released in 1946 he worked as a blaster in a remote Australian mine where he built a sailing boat and traveled to the Philippines and New Guinea before trading the boat in on a WW2 vessel he used to start a pearling business and also as a crocodile hunter.

He was later unfairly sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit and spent some years in jail where he wrote a number of books, some of which were published and even won many literary awards. The lead police officer won a bravery award for his arrest of dad and later became the commissioner of police. He was later caught out and was sent to prison himself following a major investigation into the police force and the government of the time.

Following this time he spent the rest of his life building boats and dreaming of the sea. There are a number of manuscripts of his adventures that are unpublished. I think at the time he tried to publish them in the 80s there was less interest in the type of stories he had to tell.

He died in 1995 in a small town in outback Australia.