SMS Leipzig (1905)
Leipzig underway before the war
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History | |
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German Empire | |
Name | Leipzig |
Namesake | Leipzig |
Builder | AG Weser, Bremen |
Laid down | 1904 |
Launched | 21 March 1905 |
Commissioned | 20 April 1906 |
Fate | Sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, 8 December 1914 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Bremen-class light cruiser |
Displacement |
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Length | Length overall: 111.1 meters (365 ft) |
Beam | 13.3 m (43.6 ft) |
Draft | 5.61 m (18.4 ft) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) |
Range | 4,690 nmi (8,690 km; 5,400 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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Armor |
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SMS Leipzig ("His Majesty's Ship Leipzig")[a] was the sixth of seven Bremen-class cruisers of the Imperial German Navy, named after the city of Leipzig. She was begun by AG Weser in Bremen in 1904, launched in March 1905 and commissioned in April 1906. Armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes, Leipzig was capable of a top speed of 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph).
Leipzig spent her career on overseas stations; at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she was cruising off the coast of Mexico. After rejoining with the East Asia Squadron, she proceeded to South American waters, where she participated in the Battle of Coronel, where the German squadron overpowered and sank a pair of British armored cruisers. A month later, she again saw action at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, which saw the destruction of the East Asia Squadron. Leipzig was chased down and sunk by the cruisers HMS Glasgow and HMS Kent; the majority of her crew was killed in the battle, with only 18 survivors.
Design
The German
Leipzig was 111.1 meters (365 ft)
The ship was armed with ten
Service history
Leipzig was ordered under the contract name "N"
Peacetime career in East Asia
Leipzig was assigned to the
Leipzig was
In early 1910, Leipzig and Scharnhorst met the gunboat
On 10 October, the
In early 1913, she visited cities along the central Chinese coast. In March, Johann-Siegfried Haun took command of the ship; he was to be her final captain. Her crew observed heavy fighting between imperial and republican forces around Nanking in July and August. The ship returned to Qingdao in September for an overhaul that lasted into October. She thereafter cruised south and visited the Philippines. In May 1914, Leipzig received orders to replace the light cruiser Nürnberg. which was cruising off the Pacific coast of Mexico to protect German interests during the Mexican Revolution. She arrived off Mazatlán, Mexico, on 7 July, where she met Nürnberg and the cruiser Dresden; the three German cruisers operated in concert with vessels from other navies to evacuate foreigners in the country. Because telegraph lines had been cut in Mexico, the German vessels did not learn of the July Crisis in Europe until 31 July, by which time World War I had broken out. Leipzig transferred forty civilians to the neutral US armored cruiser USS California and then made preparations for wartime operations.[10]
World War I
Leipzig anchored at Magdalena Bay in Mexico to await developments, and on 5 August, Haun learned of the state of war between Germany and the Triple Entente. The established mobilization plan called for the ships of the East Asia Squadron to unite, but Leipzig lacked collier support. She stopped in San Francisco to take on coal, but was unable to fully replenish her bunkers due to the United States' strict adherence to neutrality laws. Haun therefore decided to embark on a commerce raiding campaign against British merchant shipping. The lack of suitable targets led Haun to move south to the Gulf of California on 17 August to take on more coal. A week later, Leipzig sank a British freighter carrying sugar and then proceeded to the Peruvian coast by the 28th. She stopped in Guaymas in neutral Mexico to take on a fresh load of coal on 8 September.[11][12][13] She got underway two days later, headed further south in accordance with instructions from the German naval command, and on 11 September she stopped and sank the British oil tanker Elsinore. She called in the Galápagos Islands to take coal from a German merchant ship and put Elsinore's crew ashore.[14][15] Reports of a British squadron in the area forced Leipzig to leave.[11][12][13]
The ship thereafter stopped to allow the crew to clean her badly fouled
Battle of Coronel
While patrolling off Coronel, Leipzig stopped a Chilean barque and searched her, but since she was a neutral vessel, and not carrying contraband, the Germans let her go. At 16:00 on 1 November, Leipzig spotted a column of smoke in the distance, followed by a second ship at 16:17, and a third at 16:25. The British spotted Leipzig at approximately the same time, and the two squadrons formed into lines of battle. Leipzig was the third ship in the German line, behind the two armored cruisers. At 18:07, Spee issued the order "Fire distribution from left", meaning that each ship would engage its opposite number; the Germans fired first, at 18:34.[18]
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau quickly wrecked their British counterparts, while Leipzig fired at Glasgow without success. At 18:49, Glasgow hit Leipzig, but the shell was a dud and did not explode. Leipzig and Dresden hit Glasgow five times before Spee ordered Leipzig to close with the stricken Good Hope and torpedo it. A rain squall obscured the ship, and by the time Leipzig reached Good Hope's position, the latter had sunk. Unaware of the sinking of Good Hope, no rescue operations were mounted by Leipzig's crew. By 20:00, Leipzig encountered Dresden in the gathering darkness, and the two initially mistook each other for hostile warships, though they quickly established their identity. Leipzig emerged from the battle essentially unscathed, and with no wounded crewmen.[19]
In the aftermath of the Battle of Coronel, Spee decided to return to Valparaiso to receive further orders; while Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Nürnberg went into the harbor, Leipzig and Dresden escorted the colliers to Mas a Fuera. The rest of the East Asia Squadron joined them there on 6 November; the cruisers restocked their coal and other supplies. On 10 November, Leipzig and Dresden were sent to Valparaiso, arriving on the 13th. Five days later, they rejoined the Squadron approximately 250 nautical miles (460 km; 290 mi) west of Robinson Crusoe Island; the unified Squadron then proceeded to the Gulf of Penas, arriving on 21 November. There, they coaled and prepared to make the long voyage around Cape Horn. The British, shocked by their defeat at Coronel, had meanwhile dispatched the powerful battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, under the command of Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee, to hunt down and destroy Spee's ships. They departed Britain on 11 November and reached the Falkland Islands on 7 December, having been joined on the way by the armored cruisers Carnarvon, Kent, and Cornwall and the light cruisers Bristol and the battered Glasgow.[20]
Battle of the Falkland Islands
On 26 November, the East Asia Squadron departed the Gulf of Penas, bound for Cape Horn and the Atlantic and reached the Cape on 2 December. While off the Cape, Leipzig took the Canadian sailing ship Drummuir as a prize; the ship was carrying 2,750 t (2,710 long tons; 3,030 short tons) of coal, which was transferred to the colliers Baden and Santa Isabel at
The Germans approached
Glasgow pursued Leipzig, and quickly caught up, opening fire by 14:40. After about twenty minutes of firing, Leipzig was hit; she turned to port to open the range, before turning to starboard in order to bring her full broadside into action. In the ensuing action, both ships were hit several times, forcing Glasgow to break off and fall behind the more powerful armored cruisers. Leipzig was battered severely by Cornwall and Glasgow and set on fire; she nevertheless remained in action and continued to fight. In the course of the engagement, Leipzig hit Cornwall eighteen times, causing a significant list to port. She fired three torpedoes at the British ships, but failed to score any hits with them. At 19:20, Haun issued the order to scuttle his wrecked ship; the British approached and opened fire on the stricken cruiser at close range, killing large numbers of the crew. The British also destroyed a cutter filled with survivors, killing all of them. Leipzig finally capsized and sank at 21:05, with Haun still aboard. Only eighteen men were pulled from the freezing water.[16][24]
Notes
Footnotes
- Seiner Majestät Schiff" (German: His Majesty's Ship).
- ^ 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
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 2, p. 124.
- ^ Nottelmann, pp. 108–110.
- ^ a b Gröner, pp. 102–103.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, p. 211.
- ^ Gröner, pp. 102–104.
- ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, pp. 211–212.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, p. 212.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, pp. 211–213.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, p. 213.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, pp. 211, 213.
- ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, pp. 213–214.
- ^ a b Marley, p. 634.
- ^ a b Staff, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Bisher, p. 15.
- ^ Fayle, p. 229.
- ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz Vol. 5, p. 214.
- ^ Staff, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Staff, pp. 31–33.
- ^ Staff, pp. 34–37, 39.
- ^ Staff, pp. 58–60.
- ^ Staff, pp. 61–62.
- ^ Staff, pp. 62–66.
- ^ Halpern, p. 99.
- ^ Staff, pp. 73–76.
References
- Bisher, Jamie (2016). The Intelligence War in Latin America, 1914–1922. Jefferson, NC: ISBN 978-0-7864-3350-6.
- Fayle, C Ernest (1920). Seaborne Trade. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I: The Cruiser Period. London: OCLC 1184620170.
- ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
- Halpern, Paul G. (1991). A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1557503527.
- 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. 2. Ratingen: Mundus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8364-9743-5.
- 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.
- Marley, David F. (1998). Wars of the Americas. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 0-87436-837-5.
- 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.
- Staff, Gary (2011). Battle on the Seven Seas. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime. ISBN 978-1-84884-182-6.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1-68247-745-8.
External links
- "S.M.S. Leipzig (1905), Kleiner Kreuzer der Kaiserlichen Marine, technische Angaben und Geschichte in alten Postkarten" [S.M.S. Leipzig (1905), Small Cruiser of the Imperial Navy, Technical Details and History in Old Postcards]. www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de (in German). Retrieved 20 December 2023.