Aboard the Dresden, Captain Ludecke wondered just how much the Berlin Admiralty expected him to achieve. Her presence was clearly affecting the movements of Allied shipping, which was not inclined to leave the safety of neutral harbours. This in itself meant that he was unable to prey on it, which was frustrating in the extreme. Again, while the Etappendienst could supply provisions and a limited quantity of coal, replenishing the cruiser’s magazine with 4.1-inch shells was beyond its powers. In fact, Ludecke had almost no main armament ammunition left, and certainly not enough for a prolonged engagement.
Following Dresden’s escape from the Battle of the Falklands, Ludecke had brought her round the Horn into the Pacific at midnight on 8 December. On the afternoon of 9 December he anchored her in Sholl Bay, Tierra del Fuego, to cut sufficient wood to replenish his fuel. Two days later a Chilean destroyer arrived and reminded him that as a combatant he had exceeded the twenty-four hours that belligerent warships were allowed to remain in neutral waters. He therefore up-anchored and proceeded to Punta Arenas, where he arrived on 12 December. The local authorities told him he could stay as long as was necessary to refill his coal bunkers, contravening government orders that Dresden was not to be allowed into the port on any account. In the event, Ludecke cut short his stay and put to sea again at midnight on 13 December.
That was the last most people heard of Dresden for many weeks. For the next fortnight she hid in Hewitt Bay, then moved to Weihnacht Bay. On 19 January 1915 a supply ship, the Sierra Cordoba, joined her there. In Ludecke’s opinion, she was not carrying sufficient coal for him to resume the role of a surface raider. In fact, the Etappendienst had despatched no less than five colliers that would enable him to strike wherever he wanted. These were the Gladstone, Josephina, Eleana Woorman, Bangor and Gottia, but for a variety of reasons none of them would reach him. The crew of the Gladstone disliked the risks involved in their work and mutinied even before they had rounded the Horn; Josephina was captured by the Cornwall near the Falkland Islands; Eleanore Woorman tried to run for it when challenged by the Australia and was sunk by gunfire in the same area; while Bangor and Gottia sailed, respectively, from Baltimore and Buenos Aires too late to play a part in subsequent events. On 21 January 1915 Ludecke received a signal from Berlin suggesting that he should try returning to Germany by following the same route as sailing vessels. One suspects the Kaiser’s involvement in the suggestion, which was hopelessly adrift from reality. The fact was that numerous sailing vessels of different nationalities would be encountered along the way Dresden would be identified, reported and tracked down. Ludecke replied that his engines were now in such a poor state that they would be unable to produce anything like the speed required to break through the Royal Navy’s North Sea blockade.
On 6 February Ludecke steamed Dresden into Quintepeu Fjord in the Gulf of Ancud. As the ship slipped through the narrow entrance to the fjord between towering cliffs that soared 1,500 feet above the level of the water, the rattle and clatter from her over-worked machinery filled the space with harsh echoes. When daylight began to fade a flotilla of sailing craft, assembled by the Etappendienst and led by a prominent German-Chilean merchant, Senor Enrique Oelkers, entered the fjord and berthed alongside the cruiser. Entire families had brought with them supplies, coal and some good things that had become just memories to Dresden’s seamen, including beer, sausages and strudel. Musical instruments were produced and a party followed. Oelkers had brought along several mechanics and they set to immediately, doing what they could to effect necessary repairs in the engine room. Some parts that could not be repaired on the spot were shipped to Puerto Montt and Calbuco, where facilities for their restoration existed.
On 14 February the pleasant interlude came to an end. Repaired and refuelled, Dresden and Sierra Cordoba pushed out into open water through a howling blizzard, leaving behind a persistent legend that they left a wooden box of Mexican treasure, waterproofed in tar. It has yet to be found and perhaps it is as well to remember that sailors’ yarns do not always dovetail exactly with naval history. Having reached a point some 200 miles off the Chilean coast, Ludecke turned north in search of prey. His search went unrewarded until 27 February when, 560 miles south-west of Valparaiso, he captured and scuttled the British barque Conway Castle, bound for Australia with 2,400 tons of barley aboard.
The fruitless efforts of Stoddart’s cruisers to locate Dresden had been watched with such amusement by the Etappendienst that its operatives decided to introduce a little wry humour. They spread reports that Dresden could be found in Last Hope Inlet, the furthest inland of a tangle of fjords reaching northwards from Smyth’s Channel. The inlet was searched twice, the only result being that Bristol damaged her rudder on an uncharted shoal and had to be dry-docked briefly.
At the end of February Ludecke sent Sierra Cordoba into Valparaiso to replenish her coal supply. At this stage he felt reasonably secure, but the truth was that Dresden was nearing the end of her career. Glasgow’s signals officer, Lieutenant Charles Stuart, intercepted a message from the Etappendienst to the Dresden. During the war’s early days a copy of the German signal code had been captured by the Imperial Russian Navy in the Baltic and passed to the British Admiralty. The Admiralty’s Room 40 OB had cracked the code in December and was able to inform Stoddart that the Etappendienst’s message instructed Dresden to meet her collier at a point 300 miles west of Coronel on 5 March. Kent was promptly ordered into the area but did not reach it until 7 March. There was nothing to be seen and the following morning a heavy fog restricted visibility. During the afternoon the fog lifted, revealing Dresden lying some 12 miles to the west. Captain Allen immediately gave chase, working Kent up to a speed of 21 knots. Dresden, however, was known to be the fastest ship in her class and had benefited from the recent attention of Senor Oelkers and his mechanics. Despite the fact that Kent’s funnels were glowing red hot and trailing sparks she began to pull away steadily until by 20.00 she was hull down and all that Allen could see of her was her masts and funnel tops. Within an hour she had disappeared completely.
It was decided to shift the search to the remote Juan Fernandez Islands and in particular the island of Mas a Tierra. Three ships were involved – Luce’s Glasgow, Allen’s Kent and an armed transport, the Orama. At this point Stuart intercepted another message for Dresden. When decoded it instructed her to meet another collier at the group’s principal island, Mas a Fuera, also known today as Robinson Crusoe Island because for five years it had been the home of Alexander Selkirk, upon whose adventures Defoe had based his story.
Ludecke anchored Dresden in the island’s Cumberland Bay on 9 March. There was no sign of a collier and he had less than 100 tons of fuel in his bunkers. He received a signal from Berlin granting permission for him to accept internment. The island’s governor was informed that he would await the arrival of a Chilean warship so that the necessary formalities could be concluded and sent four of his officers off to Valparaiso in a local sailing ship so that they could retain their freedom.
When the British ships approached the bay on 14 March Dresden was still flying the German ensign and had therefore not been interned by the Chilean authorities. Glasgow opened fire at 8,400 yards, scoring hits with her first two salvos. Kent joined in and Dresden, unable to manoeuvre on account of still being anchored, replied to the best of her ability. This was not great as she had so little ammunition left and after three minutes’ firing Ludecke sent up a white flag to join his ensign. As this clearly indicated a wish to parley and discuss surrender terms, Luce also gave the order to cease firing.
A boat pulled away from Dresden to come alongside Glasgow. A smart lieutenant climbed to the deck, punctiliously saluted the quarter deck and the officer of the watch, and introduced himself as Wilhelm Canaris. He was taken to Luce’s cabin where he argued courteously for the best terms possible. For his part, Luce could only demand complete surrender as an alternative to sinking. It hardly mattered that no agreement was reached as Canaris had simply been sen
t to buy time while Ludecke and his crew opened their sea cocks, underwater torpedo tube doors and condensers to let in the sea. When it became obvious that this would take too long to sink the ship, explosive charges were rigged to blow out the bottom of her forward magazine.
As Canaris left it was observed that the German crew were leaving their ship and heading for the shore. Next, the Chilean governor arrived, outraged that the British had flagrantly disregarded his country’s neutrality and engaged in a battle against a vessel that was under the protection of his country’s flag, to say nothing of damage caused to Chilean property. The last claim was dubious in the extreme as Luce had ensured that the small settlement in the bay was well out of the line of fire. There could, however, be no doubt that in terms of international law he had acted improperly. A suitable apology accompanied by a bag containing £500 in gold as compensation for the ‘damage’ seemed to dilute the governor’s sense of outrage somewhat. At 10.45 a huge explosion erupted aboard the Dresden and she began to sink, slowly at first, then rolled over and disappeared.
During the short action eight of Dresden’s crew had been killed and sixteen wounded. Luce sent the latter to Valparaiso in Orama so that they could receive hospital treatment and did not request their internment. Four days after the sinking the British left following the arrival of a Chilean warship to transport the 300 officers and men of Dresden’s crew to internment on Quiriquina Island in Talcahuano Bay. The Etappendienst engineered the escape of several, the most prominent being Lieutenant Wilhelm Canaris who managed to make his way back to Germany, part of the journey allegedly being made through the United Kingdom. This would not have been too difficult as he was fluent in four languages, including English and Spanish, and was given every possible assistance by German merchants in Chile. Having reached England, it would not have been difficult for him to obtain a passage to Holland, Norway or Sweden, all of which were neutral and maintained communications with Germany. He subsequently served as a U – boat commander in the Mediterranean, ending the war with eighteen kills to his credit. In due course he rose to the rank of Admiral and during the Second World War he served as Chief of the Abwehr, the German Military Intelligence Service. On several occasions his position enabled him to frustrate the designs of Hitler and his Nazis, whom he hated. He was arrested in the wake of the July Bomb Plot against Hitler, imprisoned and humiliated, then hung just weeks before the war ended. During his time in office he kept a model of the Dresden on his desk as a reminder of a more honourable era.
As for Dresden herself, she remained alone on the bed of Cumberland Bay for many years. With the advent of scuba diving as a hobby she began to receive occasional visitors and was then used by the Chilean Navy for diver training. In recent years a team of Chilean and German divers recovered the ship’s bell which, in November 2008, was presented by the Chilean government to the German Armed Forces Museum in Dresden. The ship’s story caught the imagination of the novelist C.S. Forester and provided the inspiration for his book Brown on Resolution, which also deals with the fate of a German cruiser that has escaped from the Battle of the Falklands.
CHAPTER 7
The Swan of the East
In the summer of 1910 His Imperial Majesty’s brand new light cruiser Emden joined Admiral Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron off Apia in Western Samoa. In September she continued her voyage to the squadron’s home station of Tsingtao. She belonged to the Dresden Class of light cruisers and although she was not quite as fast as Dresden herself she possessed fine lines and the light grey, almost white, paint of her hull, offset by the darker grey of her three funnels, attracted admiring glances and led to her being known among the squadron as The Swan of the East.
The subjects of the recently created German Empire did not always welcome their new rulers and this sometimes led to violent insurrection followed by the harsh repression of those involved. As a result of this Emden became one of very few warships belonging to the Imperial German Navy to see active service prior to 1914. In December 1910, under the command of Commander Vollerthun, she was despatched in company with Nurnberg to Ponape in the German Caroline Islands to assist in suppressing the outbreak of violence known as the Sokehs Rebellion. This had succeeded sufficiently for the rebels to have constructed their own fortifications. Emden subjected these to a sustained bombardment with her main armament and then put a landing party ashore to storm them. Resistance was stiff, costing the lives of one officer and several seamen before the position was taken.
By March 1911 the situation in Ponape had quietened down sufficiently for Emden to return to Tsingtao. During the rest of the year she visited Samoa and was sent to Shanghai to protect German interests when the Chinese Revolution broke out in the middle of November and the new Republic of China descended into chaos as local warlords seized power. On 5 January 1912 Vollerthun was relieved by Captain von Restorff, who was himself relieved by Commander Karl von Müller in May 1912.
Hardly had Müller settled in than Emden was ordered to the island of Yap in the Marianas Group, where the German settlers believed themselves to be under threat. The ship was made very welcome and her presence seemed to overawe the local troublemakers. Although it was appreciated that the interior of the island was still dangerous, the coastal settlement of Citape seemed secure enough and Emden returned to Tsingtao. Later that year she was sent to the Yangtze River where warlords were using their troops to impose their will on the river traffic, making a name for herself by silencing a rebel artillery battery that had opened an inaccurate fire on her.
Müller was a quiet, thoughtful man who was able to see the storm clouds of war gathering during the summer of 1914. That July the rest of the squadron was showing the flag in Germany’s Pacific colonies and Müller reached the conclusion that Tsingtao would quickly become a trap once war was declared. He therefore took Emden to sea on 31 July and learned that his country was at war two days later.
As described elsewhere, the Russian liner Ryazan was captured and escorted into Tsingtao where she underwent conversion to an armed merchant cruiser. Emden left almost immediately and on 8 August rejoined the East Asia Squadron at the island of Pagan in the northern Marianas. There, Müller convinced Spee that by acting independently in the Indian Ocean he could do the enemy far more damage than would be possible if he remained with the squadron, and simultaneously reduce its logistic burden. On 14 August, accompanied by the fully laden collier Markomannia, he left the squadron and commenced one of the most remarkable raiding careers in the history of sea warfare.
Before entering the Indian Ocean, Müller decided to coal in a secluded bay on the coast of Timor in the Dutch East Indies. The work had not been long in progress when it was suspended by the arrival of a more powerful Dutch warship, the 5,300-ton Tromp. The Dutch captain courteously explained that the Emden was in neutral territorial waters and must leave, although he permitted the coaling to continue until the task was completed. On 28 August Müller took Emden through the Lombok Strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok and on into the Indian Ocean with Markomannia following several miles behind. At one point Emden’s radio operators picked up Dutch transmission reporting a violation of territorial water by a four-funnelled British warship. Emden had only three funnels and Müller decided to add a dummy fourth, made from wood and canvas, so that she resembled the British cruiser Yarmouth. The dummy funnel could be raised and lowered as the situation required.
Within the Indian Ocean convoys were the exception rather than the rule and the vast majority of Allied merchant ships sailed as individuals and without escort. The result was that throughout September Emden captured no less than seventeen ships. In this Müller was greatly assisted by one of his reserve officers, Lieutenant Lauterbach, who in peacetime was a merchant skipper familiar with the Far East, its trade routes and shipping patterns. Invariably a round fired across the bows of the intercepted vessel, plus a warning not to use her radio, was sufficient to bring her to a standstill. A boarding party would then str
ip her of anything that might be useful to the Emden and she would then be sunk by gunfire or demolition charges. In this way Emden and her colliers managed to live off her victims, absorbing their coal, provisions and luxury items. The crews of captured ships would normally be housed under guard in one of the prizes and when their numbers grew too great they would be despatched into a neutral port and released, where they invariably commented on the chivalrous nature of the raider’s commander.
On 10 September Emden made her first capture, a Greek collier named Pontoporus. The ship was operating under a British charter but her master did not care who he worked for, provided he was paid. Unfortunately, his ship was carrying poor quality Indian coal that was difficult to handle and smoked horribly, which was the last thing Müller wanted. That day also saw the capture of a small freighter, the Indus, with general cargo aboard. The next day it was the turn of the Lovat, sailing in ballast. The Kabinga, taken the following day, presented Müller with something of a problem as, while the ship herself was British, the cargo was American property and would have to be paid for if destroyed. In the end, he decided to let her go. Also released was a neutral Italian freighter, the Dandolo.
Two captures were made on 13 September. First was the collier Killin, loaded with Indian coal. Müller had more than enough of this commodity and sent her to the bottom with gunfire. Next came the Diplomat, bound from Calcutta to London with 1,000 tons of tea aboard. This was of no earthly use to the Emden and she was quickly disposed of with a combination of demolition charges and opened sea cocks. Two more British ships were captured the following day – the Trabboch, in ballast and heading for Calcutta, which was quickly disposed of, and the freighter Clan Matheson. The captain of the latter, however, was a belligerent Scot who refused to stop in response to the usual shot across the bows and only did so when warned that the next would be part of a salvo directed at the ship herself. Aboard her were railway locomotives, Rolls-Royce cars and assorted machinery also bound for Calcutta, together with several thoroughbred race horses which had to be shot because it was impossible to accommodate them.
The Hunters and the Hunted Page 9
