Von Spee shells Papeete

On the morning of 22 September 1914 two German armoured cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, appeared off Papeete, the capital of the French possessions in Oceania, on the island of Tahiti. Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee hoped to obtain coal and supplies there for his squadron. He came away empty-handed.

For coal to Tahiti

Since August the German East Asia Squadron had been crossing the Pacific, heading for the coast of South America. Spee had left Pohnpei at the beginning of August, and since then his greatest problem had been supply. The ships burned enormous quantities of coal, and the squadron had no safe base in the Pacific. At Papeete there were stocks of high-quality Cardiff coal, several thousand tons according to various estimates.

The French, warned of the approach of foreign warships, prepared to defend themselves. Lieutenant Maxime Destremau, commander of the garrison and of the small gunboat Zélée, had some of her guns removed and set up on land. When the German ships approached the harbour, the coal stores were set on fire on his orders so that they would not fall into enemy hands.

The bombardment

At about 7 a.m. the German cruisers approached the harbour entrance. The shore batteries fired several warning shots. The Germans returned fire and sank Zélée, lying in the harbour, and the German freighter Walküre, which the French had captured earlier. Shells also fell on the town. Two blocks of buildings, the market and copra stores burned down. Two civilians were killed, a Japanese man and a Polynesian boy. The material damage was estimated at more than 2 million francs.

Spee decided against a landing. The coal was burning, and the Germans feared that the harbour entrance had been mined. At about 11 a.m. the squadron sailed away. In the process the Germans had used up some of their precious ammunition, which they had no means of replenishing in the Pacific.

Consequences

The bombardment of Papeete gained the Germans little and cost them a great deal. Above all, it gave away the position of the squadron, which the British had been searching for across the whole Pacific for weeks. The Admiralty became certain that Spee was heading east, towards South America, and sent Admiral Christopher Cradock’s ships there. On 1 November came the Battle of Coronel, in which Spee was victorious. A month later, on 8 December, his squadron was destroyed in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The shortage of ammunition, used up among other places at Papeete, was then felt by the Germans.

Destremau received no recognition. He was court-martialled for his decisions during the defence of Papeete, but died in 1915 before the case was concluded. He was awarded the Legion of Honour posthumously in 1918.