Englehorn in 1933.
Thomas Englehorn (1900 - 1970) was a German sea captain and captain of the S.S Venture.
Biography[]
Englehorn was born in Berlin in 1900. He served as a corporal during World War I in the Imperial German Army. In 1918, he and his comrades mutinied against Kaiser Wilhelm II in the November Revolution which caused the end of the war and the born of the Weimar Republic. Englehorn was a member of the Spartacus League. He fought German Freikorps at the streets of Berlin. After the defeat and execution of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Englehorn left Germany and moved to the United States.
He became a ship captain and worked at New York Harbor. He recruited WW1 veterans Ben Hayes and Lumpy Serkis as his crew.
In 1933, Englehorn met American film director Carl Denham, who was working on a movie and he needed Englehorn ship for the travel. Initially Englehorn refused to leave port until they had the manifest, but Denham, sought by the police, paid him to leave New York that very night. Englehorn was well known for his tendency to take on illegal cargo, including rare animals for zoos and circuses, and on this particular voyage he had a shipment of chloroform for an unknown client. Englehorn was initially doubtful that Skull Island even existed, but just as he ordered his first mate, Ben Hayes, to turn the Venture around they sighted the isle.
When Denham went ashore with Ann Darrow and his film crew and they were attacked by the natives, it was Englehorn who came to their rescue and killed one of the warriors who was about to behead Denham. Following Ann's abduction to be a sacrifice to King Kong, Englehorn gave Denham and Jack Driscoll 24 hours to find her before he and his crew pulled anchor and left Skull Island. But Bruce Baxter persuaded Englehorn to mount a rescue operation when the search party did not return, and the Captain and his men managed to arrive in time to rescue Denham, Driscoll, Jimmy, and Preston from "giant insects". Denham ultimately persuaded Englehorn to let him use the chloroform shipment to knock Kong out, allowing them to capture the creature.
Englehorn continued his career as ship captain until World War II, when his ship was commandeered by the US Army and Englehorn was looked out by the FBI under the suspition of being a communist and for being German.
After the war, he returned to Berlin, where he lived in the West part of the city until his death in 1970.