SMS Olga
Olga in Kiel, sometime before 1890
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History | |
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German Empire | |
Name | Olga |
Namesake | Olga Nikolaevna of Russia |
Ordered | 1878 |
Builder | AG Vulcan Stettin |
Laid down | 1879 |
Launched | 11 December 1880 |
Commissioned | 9 January 1882 |
Fate | Broken up, 1908 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Carola-class corvette |
Displacement | ) |
Length | 76.35 m (250 ft 6 in) |
Beam | 12.5 m (41 ft) |
Draft | 4.98 m (16 ft 4 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 13.9 knots (25.7 km/h; 16.0 mph) |
Range | 3,420 nautical miles (6,330 km; 3,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Crew |
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Armament |
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SMS Olga was the second member of the
In the course of her career, Olga was sent abroad on three major deployments. The first, uneventful voyage came in 1882, and took the vessel to
From 1890, Olga saw limited service, in a variety of subsidiary roles. She was used as a
in 1908.Design
The six ships of the Carola class were ordered in the late 1870s to supplement Germany's fleet of cruising warships, which at that time relied on several ships that were twenty years old. Olga and her sister ships were intended to patrol Germany's colonial empire and safeguard German economic interests around the world.[1]
Olga was 76.35 meters (250 ft 6 in)
Olga was armed with a
Service history
Olga was ordered as
First two deployments abroad
Olga was assigned to the South America station on 1 October 1882; she left
Olga began the voyage back to Germany on 5 January 1884, and on the way had to stop in Plymouth again due to storm damage. While the ship was under repair, Prince Heinrich again went to visit Queen Victoria in London, this time accompanied by Georg Herbert Münster, the German ambassador to Britain. While they were in Paddington and Victoria stations, bombs were placed under Prince Heinrich's seat, though both failed to explode. On reaching Kiel on 13 March, the ship was greeted by Leo von Caprivi, the Chief of the Admiralty, and Prince Heinrich's brother, Crown Prince Wilhelm, the former aboard the ironclad Hansa and the latter aboard Notus.[5]
In August 1884, the Admiralty planned to use Olga for training purposes, but unrest in the German colony of Kamerun necessitated the formation of a West African Squadron; they assigned Olga to the squadron, along with its flagship, the corvette Bismarck, and the corvettes Ariadne and Gneisenau. Olga was accordingly commissioned on 1 October for service with the squadron, and she left Wilhelmshaven on 30 October. She anchored off Douala on 18 December in company with Bismarck. The ships sent landing parties ashore and took part in battles with local forces in the town on 20 and 21 December. The ships' shallow draft allowed them to proceed upriver to provide gunfire support to the men fighting on land. Once the fighting ended, Olga conducted a survey of the Wouri River. She was sent to Togoland to suppress unrest in that colony in early February 1885 before returning to Kamerun in mid-March. She was relieved by the gunboat Habicht on 2 April; at that point, she left western Africa and returned to Germany, arriving in Kiel on 25 May.[5]
Third deployment abroad
After arriving, Olga went into the shipyard for a major overhaul. She then began her training ship duties, initially in German waters, and then in the training squadron with Stein. This activity lasted until 14 September,[5] when she was again assigned to the African station. This time, the squadron was sent to German East Africa. Olga left Germany on 29 October and arrived in East African waters on 29 December, meeting Bismarck, the flagship of KAdm Eduard von Knorr. Already on 9 February 1886, the squadron was ordered to leave Africa for the central Pacific Ocean. While there, Olga surveyed the coast of New Mecklenburg independently from the rest of the squadron. The ships regrouped in Hong Kong on 23 July, where they underwent maintenance work. While cruising in East Asian waters later that year, Knorr received orders to take the squadron back to German East Africa.[6]
The squadron arrived on 25 December, and Olga was tasked with patrolling the coast of Wituland and raising the German flag in Manda Bay (in what is now Kenya) in January 1887. She was also sent to force the extradition of the murderers of the German explorer Karl Ludwig Jühlke, and transported the men from Kismayo to Zanzibar. In early March 1887, the squadron left East Africa and went to Cape Town, South Africa, due to rising tensions between Germany and France. There, they awaited further orders that might come in the event of war between the two countries. After the situation calmed, the Admiralty sent the ships back to the Pacific on 7 May. They arrived in Sydney, Australia on 9 June; that day, Olga's captain suddenly died and the executive officer took command of the vessel. While in Sydney, the ship went into the dry dock there for an overhaul.[6]
The work was completed by August, allowing the squadron to proceed to Samoa. They arrived in
There, she joined the gunboats Eber and
Training ship
The Admiralty thereafter decided to employ Olga as a training ship. Her rigging was reduced and she was assigned to the North Sea Naval Station in 1891. Olga was activated for training duties for the first time on 25 July 1893 to take part in divisional exercises with the rest of the fleet that were held every year. These maneuvers concluded on 30 September, after which she was again laid up in Wilhelmshaven. On 31 March 1897, Olga was reclassified as a third class cruiser, and she was transferred to the Fisheries School in November to replace the old aviso Zieten, which had recently been decommissioned temporarily. During this period, she housed the school during the winter months. After Zieten returned to service on 29 March 1898, the two ships operated together in the North Sea. They cruised in the southern North Sea in April and May that year, returning to Wilhelmshaven on 9 May.[7]
Olga participated in a scientific cruise to the
Olga returned to fishery protection service in the North Sea on 4 October, though this was interrupted later that month by a training cruise to
Notes
References
- ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
- 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. 6. Ratingen: Mundus Verlag. ISBN 3-7822-0237-6.
- Lyon, Hugh (1979). "Germany". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (1997). Preparing for Weltpolitik: German Sea Power Before the Tirpitz Era. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-745-7.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1-68247-745-8.
- Nottelmann, Dirk (2022). Wright, Christopher C. (ed.). "From "Wooden Walls" to "New-Testament Ships": The Development of the German Armored Cruiser 1854–1918, Part II: "The Iron-Cruisers"". Warship International. LIX (3): 197–241. ISSN 0043-0374.