SMS Prinz Adalbert (1901)

Coordinates: 56°33′N 20°18′E / 56.550°N 20.300°E / 56.550; 20.300
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships with the same name, see SMS Prinz Adalbert.

SMS Prinz Adalbert
History
German Empire
NamePrinz Adalbert
NamesakePrince Adalbert of Prussia
BuilderKaiserliche Werft, Kiel
Laid downApril 1900
Launched22 June 1901
ChristenedPrincess Irene of Prussia
Commissioned12 January 1904
FateTorpedoed and sunk 23 October 1915
General characteristics
Class and typePrinz Adalbert-class cruiser
Displacement
Length126.5 m (415 ft) o/a
Beam19.6 m (64 ft 4 in)
Draft7.43 m (24 ft 5 in)
Installed power
Propulsion
  • 3 × screw propellers
  • 3 ×
    triple-expansion steam engines
Speed20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Range5,080 nautical miles (9,410 km; 5,850 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement
  • 35 officers
  • 551 enlisted men
Armament
Armor

SMS Prinz Adalbert ('His Majesty's Ship Prince Adalbert')[a] was an armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the Imperial German Navy. She was named after Prince Adalbert of Prussia, former Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Navy, and was the lead ship of her class.

Prinz Adalbert was built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. Her keel was laid in April 1900, and she was launched in June 1901. Her completion in January 1904 had been delayed by an excess of construction projects at the Imperial Dockyard. She was armed with a main battery of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, a significant improvement over the previous armored cruiser, Prinz Heinrich, which carried only two 24 cm (9.4 in) guns. The ship was capable of a top speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph).

Upon commissioning, Prinz Adalbert served as a gunnery

German Army. She was torpedoed by a British submarine in July 1915, but was able to return to port and was repaired. She was torpedoed a second time on 23 October 1915; the torpedo detonated her ammunition magazines
, rapidly sinking the ship. Only three men were rescued from a crew of 675, in the worst German naval loss in the Baltic during the war.

Design

Main article: Prinz Adalbert-class cruiser
Line-drawing of Prinz Adalbert; the shaded areas represent the portions of the ship protected by armor

Prinz Adalbert was one of two cruisers in the Prinz Adalbert class; the other was named Friedrich Carl. Both were ordered under the Second Naval Law of 1900, which called for a force of fourteen armored cruisers that would be able to serve in Germany's colonial empire and scout for the main German fleet in home waters. The need to fill both roles was the result of budgetary limitations, which prevented Germany from building vessels specialized to each task.[1][2] The Prinz Adalbert design was based on that of the previous armored cruiser, Prinz Heinrich, but incorporated a more powerful armament and more comprehensive armor protection.[3][4]

Prinz Adalbert

metric horsepower (16,000 ihp) for a maximum speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph), though she slightly exceeded these figures on speed trials. She carried up to 1,630 t (1,600 long tons; 1,800 short tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of up to 5,080 nautical miles (9,410 km; 5,850 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). The ship's crew consisted of 35 officers and 551 enlisted men.[3]

The ship was armed with four

Krupp cemented armor, along with an armored deck that was 40 to 80 mm (1.6 to 3.1 in) thick. Her main battery turrets had faces 150 mm (5.9 in) thick and her conning tower had an equal amount of armor on its sides.[3]

Service history

Prinz Adalbert was ordered under the provisional name "B" and built at the

Goldmarks.[3] Sea trials were completed by 30 May, after which Prinz Adalbert began her duties as a gunnery training ship.[7]

In September, the ship took part in the annual autumn maneuvers with the rest of the Heimatflotte ('Home Fleet'). A special training unit consisting of reserve ships, training ships like Prinz Adalbert, and a flotilla of torpedo boats was created in early 1905; Prinz Adalbert was the

naval review at the end of the exercises on 13 September. In February 1906, the tender Fuchs was assigned to support Prinz Adalbert. From 17 to 28 June, the cruiser served as the flagship of Prince Heinrich, then the commander of the Baltic Sea Naval Station. During this period the ship traveled to Norway to take part in the coronation festivities for King Haakon VII.[10]

The cruiser again took part in the autumn maneuvers in 1907 and 1909. During the latter maneuvers, Prinz Adalbert took part in the Reserve Division, commanded again by Zeye, who had now been promoted to

Sonderburg, where she replaced the armored cruiser Prinz Heinrich.[11]

World War I

Map of the North and Baltic Seas in 1911

1914

At the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, Prinz Adalbert was brought into front-line service with the fleet, and Kapitän zur See

Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. The ship was briefly detached to guard the Great Belt after the Germans received false intelligence suggesting that British warships would try to penetrate the Baltic. She then joined the High Seas Fleet for a sortie into the North Sea on 2–4 November.[13]

After her sister ship Friedrich Carl was sunk in November 1914,[9] Prinz Adalbert was detached from the IV Scouting Group to replace her in the Coastal Defense Division in the Baltic on 29 November. She became the flagship for Admiral Ehler Behring, the commander of the cruiser detachment in the Baltic, on 7 December. On the 15th, she sortied with the light cruisers Augsburg, Lübeck, Amazone, and Thetis and several torpedo boats for a reconnaissance sweep toward Åland; the ships returned to port on 18 December without having engaged Russian forces. Another sweep followed on 27–29 December, this time to cover a sortie by the five Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleships of V Battle Squadron toward Gotland. On 6 January 1915, Prinz Adalbert, Thetis, Augsburg, Lübeck, and several torpedo boats and U-boats went on a patrol toward Utö, where they discovered a Russian submarine base. The Germans planned to attack the base with the torpedo boats and Thetis, since she had the shallowest draft, but due to a miscommunication, the attack was not carried out.[13]

1915

On 22 January 1915, Prinz Adalbert, in company with Augsburg and several torpedo boats, conducted another reconnaissance sweep toward Åland. While on the return voyage, she bombarded Russian positions at

German Army's campaign to retake Memel; Prinz Adalbert supported one such operation, a raid of the II Scouting Group into the Bothnian Sea to attack Russian merchant shipping on 23 March.[15] The following day, the ships from the High Seas Fleet were recalled to the North Sea, leaving Behring's cruisers alone once again.[16]

Behring conducted one last operation from 13 to 17 April, with Prinz Adalbert, Thetis, and Lübeck, to support the minelayer Deutschland, which laid a minefield off Dagö. On the 20th, the Admiralstab instituted a reorganization of the Baltic Sea forces, and Behring was replaced by Konteradmiral Albert Hopman. At the same time, Michelsen was promoted to Hopman's chief of staff, with his place as Prinz Adalbert's commanding officer being taken by Kapitän zur See Wilhelm Bunnemann.[17] The ship remained the flagship of the unit, and Hopman made his first cruise aboard the vessel from Kiel to Danzig on 27 April. At this time, Generalfeldmarschall ('General Field Marshal') Paul von Hindenburg, the commander-in-chief of German forces on the Eastern Front, ordered a major assault on Libau. Hopman ordered his forces to support an attempt by the German Army to seize the city. The pre-dreadnoughts of the IV Battle Squadron and the IV Scouting Group were allocated to Hopman's command to provide additional support to the operation.[16][18] The attack took place on 7 May, and consisted of Prinz Adalbert and the armored cruisers Roon and Prinz Heinrich, the elderly coast defense ship Beowulf, and the cruisers Augsburg, Thetis, and Lübeck. They were escorted by a number of destroyers, torpedo boats, and minesweepers.[19] The bombardment went as planned, though the destroyer V107 struck a mine in Libau's harbor, which blew off her bow and destroyed the ship. German ground forces were successful in their assault and took the city.[20]

On 1 July, the minelayer

Danzig, but had to make the journey back to Kiel, which she reached on 4 July, for repairs.[23][24]

Loss

Repairs were completed by September 1915. On 21 September, Prinz Adalbert joined a sortie to the

Dagerort. The ship was steaming some 20 nmi (37 km; 23 mi) west of Libau, en route to her patrol area, in company with a pair of destroyers on 23 October when she was intercepted by the British submarine HMS E8.[23][25] E8 fired a spread of torpedoes at a range of approximately 1,200 m (1,300 yd); the ship was struck, and the ammunition magazine detonated.[26] The massive explosion destroyed the ship,[25] which sank immediately with the loss of 672 crew,[9] leaving only three survivors. It was the German Baltic forces' greatest single loss of life during the war.[25]

See also

  • List by death toll of ships sunk by submarines

Notes

Footnotes

  1. Seiner Majestät Schiff
    " ('His Majesty's Ship').
  2. ^ In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnelladekanone) denotes that the gun is quick loading, while the L/40 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/40 gun is 40 calibers, meaning that the gun is 40 times as long as it is in bore diameter.[5]
  3. ^ 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)".[3]
  4. ^ Fitting out work on the ship lasted for slightly over 30 months. In comparison, Friedrich Carl, her sister ship, was launched on 21 June 1902 and completed by 12 December 1903, a total of 18 months.[9]

Citations

  1. ^ Campbell & Sieche, p. 142.
  2. ^ Herwig, p. 27.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Gröner, p. 50.
  4. ^ a b c Lyon, p. 255.
  5. ^ Grießmer, p. 177.
  6. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 34.
  7. ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 35.
  8. ^ "Latest intelligence – Germany". The Times. No. 36489. London. 24 June 1901. p. 7.
  9. ^ a b c Gröner, p. 51.
  10. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 35–36.
  11. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 36.
  12. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 34, 36–37.
  13. ^ a b c d Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 37.
  14. ^ Halpern, p. 187.
  15. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 37–38.
  16. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 38.
  17. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 34, 38.
  18. ^ Halpern, p. 191.
  19. ^ Halpern, pp. 191–192.
  20. ^ Halpern, pp. 192–193.
  21. ^ Halpern, pp. 194–195.
  22. ^ Halpern, p. 195.
  23. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 39.
  24. ^ Polmar & Noot, p. 42.
  25. ^ a b c Halpern, p. 203.
  26. ^ Polmar & Noot, p. 45.

References

56°33′N 20°18′E / 56.550°N 20.300°E / 56.550; 20.300

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