Their first opportunity came on June 4 when Stier encountered the 4,986-ton British Gemstone in the Atlantic narrows 175 miles east of Brazil’s St. Paul Rocks. Gemstone had been carrying a load of iron ore from Cape Town to Baltimore, Md., which ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic while her crew became unwilling guests of the Reich. That night, three aircraft flew over Stier, but Gerlach–who had been promoted to Korevettenkapitän on June 1–ordered her hove to in order to subdue her bow wave and wake and was not noticed.

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Stier ran into a feistier victim on June 6. The 10,170-ton Panamanian tanker Stanvac Calcutta returned fire with a 3-inch bow gun and 4-inch after gun and was taken only after Stier had expended 148 rounds and a torpedo, killing the tanker’s captain, Gustaf O. Karlsson, and 15 of her crew. Fortunately for the Germans, they had destroyed the Stanvac Calcutta’s radio and killed her radio officer with their first salvo before a distress call could be sent. Stanvac Calcutta’s chief mate, Auge H. Knudsen, and 36 oil-soaked crewmen were recovered from the Atlantic; one would die of his wounds later, and another would later die in Japanese captivity.

These promising first successes were to be Stier’s last for more than two months. She managed to lose herself to her enemies in the vastness of the southern Atlantic Ocean, but the rare lone merchantmen were also lost to her. On June 10 and 15, she met and refueled from Charlotte Schliemann, one of the blockade-running cargo ships delegated to sustain her at sea. She also took the opportunity to transfer 68 prisoners to the supply vessel.

After a long dry spell, in early July Gerlach tried using his aircraft to locate victims only to declare that the Ar-231, an underpowered little contraption that had been designed to be stowed aboard U-boats, was “totally unsuited for the Atlantic, even under the most favorable circumstances.” Sergeant Karl Heinz Decker, the Ar-231’s designated pilot, found that he could not take off unless he removed the radio and a quarter of the fuel from its tank. During landing, the starboard strut broke and the fragile aircraft capsized. Decker tried again on July 5, but the Ar-231 broke an undercarriage strut and nosed over during landing. After that, Gerlach gave up on aerial reconnaissance.

On July 27, Stier put the last of her prisoners aboard Charlotte Schliemann, and the next day she effected a wary rendezvous with Michel north of the island of St. Helena. After establishing their identities, the two raiders tried to conduct a joint sweep, but lost contact with one another. As if the more successful Michel’s luck had rubbed off on her, however, Stier encountered the 7,072-ton British merchantman Dalhousie 250 miles east of Trinidad at 8:15 a.m. After a lengthy chase, Stier caught up with her quarry at 12:48, and Dalhousie’s 37 crewmen abandoned ship as it began to sink at the stern. The British vessel managed to get off a radio message before being caught, and with their presence compromised, Stier’s and Michel’s captains decided to go their separate ways.

At that point, Captain Gerlach wanted to round the Cape of Good Hope and try his luck in the Indian Ocean, but the operational staff at naval headquarters ordered him to remain in the Atlantic, astride the Cape Town­River Plate route, and to investigate Gough Island for suitability as a possible raider base. After completing that assignment, Gerlach again rendezvoused with Charlotte Schliemann on August 27 and transferred his latest bag of prisoners. That transfer was unfortunate for the prisoners, because Charlotte Schliemann was on a run to Japan and would leave them in Japan’s less-than-compassionate care.

On September 4, Stier sighted the French ship Pasteur, but that potential victim managed to escape. Another vessel was picked up on radar on September 19, only to be lost after a 24-hour pursuit. Following another rendezvous with Michel on September 24, Stier met the blockade-runner Tannenfels 650 miles north-northwest of Tristan da Cunha the next day. The two steamed together until the morning of September 27, when they emerged from a rain squall to the welcome sight of an American freighter, which Captain Gerlach promptly attacked.

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