SMS Königsberg (1905)
SMS Königsberg at Dar es Salaam
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History | |
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German Empire | |
Name | Königsberg |
Namesake | Königsberg, East Prussia |
Builder | Kaiserliche Werft, Kiel |
Laid down | 12 January 1905 |
Launched | 12 December 1905 |
Commissioned | 6 April 1907 |
Fate | Scuttled 11 July 1915 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Königsberg-class light cruiser |
Displacement |
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Length | 115.3 m (378 ft 3 in) |
Beam | 13.2 m (43 ft 4 in) |
Draft | 5.29 m (17 ft 4 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 24.1 knots (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph) |
Range | 5,750 nmi (10,650 km; 6,620 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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Armor |
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SMS Königsberg ("His Majesty's Ship Königsberg") was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built by the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy).[Note 1] Named after Königsberg,[Note 2] the capital of East Prussia, she was laid down in January 1905, launched in December of that year and completed by June 1906. Her class included three other ships: Stettin, Stuttgart, and Nürnberg. Königsberg was armed with a main battery of ten 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 24.1 knots (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph).
After her commissioning, Königsberg served with the
Königsberg then retreated into the
Design
Königsberg and her
Königsberg was 115.3 meters (378 ft 3 in)
The ship was armed with a
Service history
Construction and early career
Königsberg was ordered under the contract name "
On 17 December, Königsberg was tasked with another goodwill visit, this time escorting the Kaiser's brother,
From 8 March to 22 May 1911, Königsberg cruised in the
East Africa station
On 1 April 1914, Fregattenkapitän Max Looff took command of the ship. Königsberg left Kiel on 25 April, stopped in Wilhelmshaven, and then left three days later for a two-year deployment to German East Africa. She steamed into the Mediterranean Sea and stopped in Spanish and Italian ports before entering the Suez Canal.[7][9] After passing through the canal, she stopped briefly in Aden before arriving in Dar es Salaam, the capital of German East Africa, on 5 June. Two days later, the Schutztruppe (Protection Force) celebrated their 25th anniversary in the colony; the deputy commander of the Schutztruppe presented Looff with a model of the cruiser Schwalbe, which had been the longest serving warship with the unit. Königsberg surveyed the harbor at Bagamoyo later in the year.[10] The African colonial subjects considered the ship to be quite impressive, particularly her three funnels, which were assumed to signify a warship more powerful than one with only two funnels. The ship acquired the nickname Manowari na bomba tatu, or "the man of war with three pipes".[11]
As tensions in Europe rose in the aftermath of the
World War I
At the outbreak of World War I, Königsberg was ordered to attack British commerce around the entrance to the Red Sea. A lack of coal hampered Looff's efforts; the British prevented his collier Koenig from leaving Dar es Salaam and purchased all the coal in Portuguese East Africa to deny it to Königsberg.[14] Looff then radioed the German steamer Zieten to warn her against using the Suez Canal, where she would have been confiscated. Königsberg chased after the German freighter Goldenfels, whose officers mistook the ship for a British cruiser and refused to stop. Königsberg was forced to fire a warning shot across the bow of Goldenfels to force the ship to stop so that Looff could warn her captain of the state of war.[15]
On 6 August, Königsberg found a British ship off the coast of Oman, the freighter City of Winchester. A prize crew took the ship along with Königsberg, and the two vessels met Zieten four days later in the Khuriya Muriya Islands, where coal from City of Winchester was transferred to Königsberg. The freighter was thereafter sunk. The British crew was taken aboard Zieten, which departed the following day and stopped in Mozambique. Meanwhile, the steamer Somali, under the command of Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) Zimmer, had left Dar es Salaam with a cargo of 1,200 t (1,200 long tons; 1,300 short tons) of coal on the night of 3–4 August to resupply Königsberg; the two ships met ten days later.[15] By the time Looff rendezvoused with Somali, his ship was down to a mere 14 t (14 long tons; 15 short tons) of coal. Somali transferred some 850 t (840 long tons; 940 short tons) of coal to the cruiser, which permitted a sweep to Madagascar. No British or French ships were found, however, and so Königsberg met Somali again on 23 August and took on coal for four days of cruising.[16]
In the meantime, British warships bombarded Dar es Salaam and destroyed the German wireless station there.
On 19 September, Königsberg left the Rufiji and arrived off Zanzibar the following morning. She opened fire at a range of about 7,000 meters (23,000 ft) at 05:10, starting the Battle of Zanzibar; within 45 minutes, Pegasus caught fire, rolled over to port, and sank. Crewmen aboard Pegasus had raised a white flag, but it could not be seen aboard Königsberg due to the heavy smoke. Pegasus's crew suffered 38 dead and 55 wounded, while Königsberg was undamaged and had no casualties. After sinking Pegasus, Königsberg bombarded the wireless station and dumped barrels filled with sand into the harbor entrance to simulate mines.[19] While leaving the harbor, Königsberg spotted the picket ship Helmuth and sank her with three shells.[20]
The cruiser then returned to the Rufiji River so work could begin on overhauling her engines; the parts would need to be transported overland to the shipyard in Dar es Salaam where they could be rebuilt.[19] While moored in the town of Salale, the ship was heavily camouflaged and defensive arrangements were erected. These included positioning soldiers and field guns to defend the approaches to the cruiser and establishing a network of coast watchers and telegraph lines to watch for hostile ships.[20] An improvised minefield was also laid in the delta to keep the British ships from entering the river.[21]
Concerned with the threat Königsberg posed to troop transports from India, the British reinforced the flotilla tasked with tracking down the elusive German raider, and placed the ships under the command of Captain Sidney R. Drury-Lowe. The sinking of Pegasus convinced the British that Königsberg must still be in German East Africa. On 19 October, the cruiser Chatham found the German East Africa Line ship Präsident at Lindi. A boarding party searched the ship and discovered documents indicating she had supplied Königsberg with coal in the Rufiji the previous month. On 30 October, the cruiser Dartmouth located Königsberg and Somali in the delta.[19][22] The cruisers Chatham, Dartmouth, and Weymouth blockaded the Rufiji Delta to ensure Königsberg could not escape.[23]
Battle of Rufiji Delta
On 3 November, the British began a bombardment in an attempt to destroy or neutralize Königsberg and Somali. Königsberg was protected by the thick mangrove swamps, which concealed the ship and offered a degree of cover from British shellfire, especially while the British ships remained outside the river. A collier, Newbridge, was converted into a blockship to be sunk in the main channel of the delta to prevent Königsberg's escape. Despite heavy German fire from both sides of the river, the British successfully sank Newbridge across one of the delta mouths on 10 November, though the German raider could still put to sea via other channels. Looff decided to move his ship further upriver, to make it more difficult for the British to destroy her. In doing so, his ship would occupy a disproportionate number of British vessels that could otherwise have been employed elsewhere.[19][21] In the course of the campaign, the British reinforced the squadron blockading the Rufiji with additional cruisers, including Pyramus and the Australian HMAS Pioneer.[24]
A civilian pilot, Dennis Cutler of Durban, South Africa, was commissioned into the Royal Marines and persuaded to make his private Curtiss seaplane available for the British Empire.[25] The Royal Navy requisitioned the passenger ship Kinfauns Castle to serve as a makeshift tender for Cutler's aircraft. On his first attempt to locate the cruiser, Cutler, who did not have a compass, got lost and was forced to land on a desert island. On his second flight, he successfully located Königsberg, and a third flight with a Royal Navy observer confirmed his observations. His aircraft's radiator was damaged on the flight by ground fire and he was grounded until replacement parts could be brought from Mombasa. A pair of Royal Naval Air Service Sopwiths were brought up with the intention of scouting and even bombing the ship. They soon fell apart in the tropical conditions. A trio of Short seaplanes fared a little better, though they too were quickly disabled by the conditions.[26]
Also in November, the British sought to use the 12-inch (305 mm) guns of the old battleship
In the meantime, conditions were deteriorating on Königsberg. There were shortages of coal, ammunition, food, and medical supplies. Although safe from the British, the crew was ravaged by malaria and other tropical ailments. Generally cut off from the outside world, the morale of the sailors fell.[29] However, the situation was marginally improved with a scheme to resupply the ship and give her a fighting chance to return home. A captured British merchant ship, Rubens, was renamed Kronborg. It was given a Danish flag, papers, and a crew of German sailors selected for their ability to speak Danish. It was then packed with coal, field guns, ammunition, small arms, and various supplies. As the freighter approached East Africa, Königsberg prepared to sortie to meet the ship and attempt to break out and return to Germany. Instead, Königsberg was trapped in the river by two cruisers and several smaller vessels. Hyacinth intercepted Kronborg as she approached, and chased her to Manza Bay. The trapped ship was forced aground and set on fire, but the Germans salvaged much of her cargo and put it to use later in the East Africa Campaign.[30]
Finally, in April 1915, the
They returned again on 11 July, after having repaired the damage sustained in the first attempt. The two monitors conducted a five-hour bombardment.
Later that day, the crew returned to haul down the ship's flag and gave three cheers for the Kaiser. The guns and other usable equipment were salvaged from the wreck starting the following day.[35] The guns were converted into field artillery pieces and coastal guns; together with the ship's crew, they went on to see service in the East African land campaign under Lettow-Vorbeck.[36] All ten guns were repaired in Dar es Salaam over the next two months; one was mounted on the converted ferry Götzen of the inland Lake Tanganyika fleet.[37] The surviving sailors, organized as the Königsberg-Abteilung (Königsberg-Detachment), eventually surrendered on 26 November 1917 and were interned in British Egypt. In 1919, after the war, the men took part in a parade through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to celebrate their service and that of their ship.[38]
In 1924, John Ingle, the former captain of Pegasus, was tasked with clearing wrecks from the harbor in Dar es Salaam. At that time, he bought the salvage rights to Königsberg for the price of £200; he sent divers to extract non-ferrous scrap metal from the wreck and in turn sold the rights. Salvage work continued into the 1930s, and by the 1940s the hull had rolled over to her starboard side. As late as 1965, salvage work continued, but in 1966 the wreck collapsed and finally sank into the riverbed. Three of the ship's 10.5 cm guns are preserved, one in Pretoria, South Africa, one in Jinja, Uganda, and one in Mombasa, along with a gun from Pegasus.[39]
Footnotes
- Seiner Majestät Schiff" (German: His Majesty's Ship).
- ^ Now Kaliningrad, Russia.
- ^ The diagram mistakenly refers to the class as the Stettin class and does not include Königsberg
- ^ German warships were ordered under provisional names. For new additions to the fleet, they were given a single letter; for those ships intended to replace older or lost vessels, they were ordered as "Ersatz (name of the ship to be replaced)".
Citations
- ^ Campbell & Sieche, pp. 142, 157.
- ^ Nottelmann, pp. 110–114.
- ^ a b c Gröner, p. 104.
- ^ Campbell & Sieche, pp. 140, 157.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 138.
- ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 138–139.
- ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 139.
- New York Times. 17 February 1910. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- ^ Farwell, p. 128.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 139–140.
- ^ Patience 2001, p. 27.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 140.
- ^ Farwell, pp. 128–129.
- ^ Halpern, p. 77.
- ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 141.
- ^ Farwell, p. 131.
- ^ Bennett, p. 131.
- ^ Farwell, p. 132.
- ^ a b c d e f g Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 142.
- ^ a b Farwell, p. 133.
- ^ a b c Bennett, p. 133.
- ^ Halpern, p. 78.
- ^ Bennett, pp. 132–133.
- ^ Willmott, p. 292.
- ^ Turner, pp. 39–40.
- ^ Patience 2011, p. 70.
- ^ Burt, p. 158.
- ^ Farwell, p. 138.
- ^ Farwell, pp. 137–138.
- ^ Farwell, pp. 139–142.
- ^ a b c d Bennett, p. 134.
- ^ Patience 2001, pp. 114–115, 121.
- ^ Patience 2001, pp. 122–123.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 144.
- ^ Patience 2001, pp. 131–132.
- ^ Herwig, pp. 154–155.
- ^ Patience 2001, pp. 133–134.
- ^ Yates, p. 289.
- ^ Patience 2011, p. 72.
References
- ISBN 1-84415-300-2.
- Burt, R. A. (1988). British Battleships 1889–1904. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-061-0.
- Campbell, N. J. M. & Sieche, Erwin (1986). "Germany". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 134–189. ISBN 978-0-85177-245-5.
- Farwell, Byron (1989). The Great War in Africa, 1914–1918. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-30564-3.
- ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
- Halpern, Paul G. (1995). A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-352-4.
- Herwig, Holger (1980). "Luxury" Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888–1918. Amherst: Humanity Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-286-9.
- Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert & Steinmetz, Hans-Otto (1993). Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe: Biographien – ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart [The German Warships: Biographies − A Reflection of Naval History from 1815 to the Present] (in German). Vol. 5. Ratingen: Mundus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7822-0456-9.
- Nottelmann, Dirk (2020). "The Development of the Small Cruiser in the Imperial German Navy". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2020. Oxford: Osprey. pp. 102–118. ISBN 978-1-4728-4071-4.
- Patience, Kevin (2001). Konigsberg: A German East African Raider. Bahrain: Kevin Patience. OCLC 37615728.
- Patience, Kevin (December 2011). "Sink the Königsberg: At All Costs". Britain at War (56). Stamford: Key Publishing: 67–72.
- Turner, Charles Cyril (1972). The Old Flying Days. New York: Arno Press. ISBN 0-405-03783-X.
- Willmott, H. P. (2009). The Last Century of Sea Power (Volume 1, From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35214-9.
- Yates, Keith (1995). Graf Spee's Raiders: Challenge to the Royal Navy, 1914–1915. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-977-8.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1-68247-745-8.
- Hoyt, Edwin (1968). The Germans Who Never Lost: The Story of the Konigsberg. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. OCLC 440986.
- Looff, Max (1936). Tufani: Sturm über Deutsch-Ostafrika (in German). Berlin: Bernard & Graefe Verlag. OCLC 17207148.