Loss of the cruiser Karlsruhe
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- War at sea
- Date:
- 4 November 1914
- Author:
- Łukasz Skowroń
On the evening of 4 November 1914, in the Atlantic several hundred kilometres east of Barbados, the German light cruiser SMS Karlsruhe was torn apart by a powerful internal explosion. The ship broke in two and sank. About 260 men died, among them her captain, Fregattenkapitän Erich Köhler. So suddenly ended the career of one of the most dangerous German raiders of the first months of the war.
Terror of the Atlantic routes
In August Karlsruhe, faster than the ships pursuing her, slipped away from British cruisers in the West Indies. Köhler then moved to the waters off the north-eastern coast of Brazil, where the busy shipping routes from Europe to South America crossed and British patrols were few. The ship operated together with several German supply ships. She also took coal and food from captured ships, and kept some of them with her to widen her field of observation.
In less than three months Karlsruhe sank or captured, depending on how they are counted, 16 or 17 merchant ships, almost all British, with a combined tonnage of more than 70,000 GRT. The Germans transferred the crews of the sunken ships to auxiliary vessels and sent them to neutral ports. Alongside Emden in the Indian Ocean, she was the most successful German cruiser in the war on trade on the oceans.
The explosion
At the end of October Köhler decided to change his area of operations. He intended to attack Bridgetown on Barbados, an important British coaling station, and then French Fort-de-France on Martinique and the shipping routes between Barbados and Trinidad. On the evening of 4 November, as the ship was steaming towards Barbados accompanied by two supply ships, a sudden explosion occurred in her forward section. Most probably the ammunition ignited spontaneously, although the exact cause was never established.
The explosion broke the hull. The bow section sank within moments, taking with it Köhler, his staff and most of the crew. The stern stayed afloat for a quarter of an hour or so, which allowed some of the sailors to escape to the accompanying ships. About 140 men survived.
A phantom ship
The Germans kept the cruiser’s loss secret. The survivors ran the British blockade in one of the supply ships and reached Germany in December. The British meanwhile went on searching for Karlsruhe, which had become a phantom ship. For months afterwards many warships needed elsewhere were tied up searching for her and protecting the routes. The Admiralty learned of the cruiser’s fate only in March 1915.
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