Sinking of the cruiser Dresden

On 14 March 1915, off the Chilean island of Más a Tierra, today Robinson Crusoe, in the Juan Fernández archipelago, the British cruisers Glasgow and Kent and the auxiliary cruiser Orama caught up with the German light cruiser Dresden. After a brief exchange of fire her crew blew up and scuttled their own ship. Dresden was the last German cruiser still operating on the oceans outside European waters.

Three months on the run

Dresden was the only warship of Admiral von Spee’s squadron to survive the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. Her captain, Fregattenkapitän Fritz Lüdecke, rounded Cape Horn and hid the cruiser among the fjords and channels of southern Chile. The ship obtained coal from German supply ships and in Chilean ports, and in negotiations with the local authorities she was helped by a young officer, Wilhelm Canaris. For many weeks the British combed the coast without success.

In February Lüdecke went out into the Pacific to hunt merchant ships again. On 27 February he stopped and sank the British sailing ship Conway Castle south of Más a Tierra. On 8 March Dresden ran into Kent in fog and managed to escape after a chase lasting several hours, but in doing so used up almost all her coal, and her worn engines were in poor condition. On 8 or 9 March, depending on the source, the cruiser dropped anchor in Cumberland Bay on Más a Tierra. Lüdecke informed the Chilean authorities that he wished to submit the ship to internment. The British, however, took the view that since Chile had so far been unable to enforce its neutrality and the German ship remained armed, she was not really interned. From an intercepted and decrypted telegram they already knew where Dresden was to meet a collier.

The last fight

On the morning of 14 March Glasgow, Kent and Orama approached Cumberland Bay. At about 8.40–8.50 a.m. Glasgow opened fire, and Kent soon joined in. Dresden, lying at anchor and unable to manoeuvre, replied with only a few shots, after which her guns fell silent. A fire broke out on the cruiser. Lüdecke hoisted a white flag and sent Canaris in a boat to Captain John Luce, the captain of Glasgow. Canaris invoked Chilean neutrality, but according to the accounts Luce replied that he had orders to destroy Dresden and would leave the rest to the diplomats, and demanded unconditional surrender.

Lüdecke had no intention of handing over the ship. The crew went ashore, and at about 10.45 a.m. a charge laid in the forward magazine exploded. The cruiser settled by the bow and at about 11.15 a.m. disappeared beneath the water. Figures for German losses vary markedly: depending on the source, from a few to a dozen or more sailors were killed and several dozen were wounded. Orama took the most seriously wounded to hospital in Valparaíso. The British suffered no losses. Even Dresden’s ship’s pig was fished out of the water. The sailors of Glasgow adopted it and named it Tirpitz, after the German admiral.

The dispute over Chilean neutrality

More than 300 surviving sailors of Dresden were interned on the Chilean island of Quiriquina near Concepción. Canaris escaped from there in August 1915 and reached Germany by way of Argentina. In the Second World War he headed the military intelligence service of the Third Reich, the Abwehr.

The attack in Chilean territorial waters was an obvious violation of Chile’s neutrality. The Chilean government protested in London, and the British government, although the Admiralty defended its commanders’ decision, soon offered an official apology, described in the note as “full and ample”. The British side stressed, however, that German warships had for months been making use of Chilean waters and ports. The sinking of Dresden closed the chapter of cruiser warfare that had begun in August 1914. From then on the German threat to shipping on the oceans came mainly from auxiliary cruisers and soon, above all, from submarines.