Sinking of the cruiser Takachiho

On the night of 17–18 October 1914 the German torpedo boat S90 slipped out of the besieged port of Tsingtao and torpedoed the old Japanese cruiser Takachiho. The ship blew up and sank very quickly. About 270 men were killed, including her commanding officer, Captain Itō Sukeyasu. It was the largest single loss suffered by the Japanese armed forces in the whole of the First World War.

A veteran of two wars

Takachiho was a protected cruiser of the Naniwa class, built in the mid-1880s at Armstrong’s British shipyard. She fought in the First Sino-Japanese War and in the Russo-Japanese War, including the Battle of Tsushima. By 1914 she was obsolete and served as a minelayer. Off Tsingtao she formed part of the Japanese forces blockading the port from the sea.

The night attack

S90 was one of the few ships left to the defenders of Tsingtao. She was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Paul Brunner. On the evening of 17 October the torpedo boat left port and under cover of darkness slipped through the line of Japanese blockading ships. During the night she came upon Takachiho and fired torpedoes at her. Sources differ as to how many hit. According to some accounts the explosion detonated the mines that Takachiho carried on deck, according to others her magazines blew up. The cruiser broke apart and went to the bottom almost at once. Only a handful of sailors survived, according to some sources just three. The number of dead is given variously, most often as 271, but also as 264.

The end of S90

After the attack a return to the blockaded port was practically impossible. Brunner therefore headed south-west along the Chinese coast, but he lacked the coal to break out any further. On 18 October the crew ran the torpedo boat aground about 35 nautical miles south-west of Tsingtao and blew her up. None of the German sailors was killed. The Chinese authorities, who remained neutral, interned them in Nanking.

The sinking of Takachiho was the most important success of the German defenders at sea, but it could not change the fate of the fortress. A week earlier a similar fate had befallen the Russian cruiser Pallada in the Baltic, which blew up with her entire crew after being hit by a torpedo from a German submarine. At Tsingtao, meanwhile, the Japanese were methodically pushing their trenches closer to the German fortifications and preparing a great bombardment of the fortress.