The Sinking of the Konisberg
So important was the Royal Navy during WWI that Winston Churchill,the first sea lord ,had stated that Lord Jellicoe, the British Naval commander, was the only person on either side having the capability of losing the war in a single afternoon. Although Britain at the time had the strongest navy in the world she was not always able to protect her shipping, especially in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific. Japan had allied with Britain and proceded to occupy the former German colonies of Papau, the Carolines, the Marianeas, the Marshall Islands ,and the port of Tsingtao on the Chinese coast forcing the Kreigsmarine to rely upon surface raiders , her High Seas fleet now confined to its home ports by the Royal Navys blockade.
German Admiral von Spee had wrecked havoc throughout the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, in November of 1914 his ships sinking three British Cruisers off the coast of Chile .Britain retaliated at the battle of the Falkland Islands by sinking four German ships and killing 6,000 German sailors, including von Spee.During the WWI most of the African sub continent, but for three small enclaves (German East Africa, Cameroon and German SW Africa)had sided with the entente powers of France, Britain and Russia. In 1915, the German Light Cruiser Konigsberg sank the British Cruiser Pegasus and a British merchant vessel and then took refuge in the Rufiya River Delta in German East Africa in order to undertake engine repairs and to obtain engine parts from Dar-es-Salem. The commander of the Cape Station, Vice admiral King Hall, was given the task of finding her and then destroying or capturing her. On 11 October 1915 boarding parties from RN ships captured the German steam ship 'President' obtaining from her a chart made by the German Survey Ship 'Mowe' which was operating in the area. On 30 October the cruiser HMS Chatham arrived off the delta complex to be joined by other RN ships, their crews erecting a series of machine gun positions and blockades at the entrance to the river. A collier was then sunk in the river mouth thus blocking access to Dar-es-Salem, the Konigsberg now trapped but still safe as the British ships were un-able to move up the river, having too great a displacement.
The British commandeered two Curtis flying boats from Durban, Cape Colony, the property of T.H. Dennis Cutler Mining Company placing them aboard the auxiliary cruiser Kinsfawncastle arriving at the delta regions Niororo Island early in November. By the 19 November one of the aircraft was down in the sea for six hours with a damaged radiator, which was eventually replaced with one taken from an automobile.
On the 22 February two Sopwith 807s of the RNAS (Royal Naval Air Service) attempted to find the Konigsberg but failed, the damp tropical air preventing them from flying above 1500 feet. One of the aircraft was wreaked in the attempt. Next the river monitors HMS Severn and HMS Mersey were called in and based at the newly captured Mafia Island.
On 3 April a Short Folder aircraft also based at Mafia managed to take photographs of the Konigsberg, one aircraft damaged in the process by ground fire, the other catching fire of its own accord. Later two Cauldrons GIIs and two Henri Farmens F27s were also landed on Mafia Island. During a practice Arial fire spotting exercise one was wreaked in a crash.
On the 6 July, the Konigsberg took three hits from the RN monitors as RNAS aircraft caused a diversion by flying as though to attack, the monitors themselves taking hits directed at them from shore positions manned by Konigsberg crewmembers. On 11 July HMS Severn guided by a Henri Farman hit the Konigsberg with an 8 inch salvo, the attacking aircraft downed by AA fire, the crews managing to leave the aircraft unscathed as another Cauldron took over there fire spotting duties. By 1450 hours the German Cruiser was a flaming hulk, the relieving Cauldron wreaked upon landing.
The commander of the Konigsberg Colonel Paul von Lettow-Verbeck was never captured and although in August Cauldrons IIIs confirmed that the Konigsberg was finished and probably scuttled at the mouth of the river the ships 4.1 inch guns had been saved and up to the time of the capitulation of German East Africa on the 14 November 1918, had contributed to the tying down by the German guerrilla forces of approximately 20,000 allied troops in the interior. Many a tale has been written about the exploits of the German Guerrilla force, some partially true, some dubious, some pure Hollywood . Amphibious operations by the RNAS eventually placed the entire east coast of Africa under British control.
One of the most famous of these surface raiders was the Emden commanded by the skilful and chivalrous Karl Müller. His ship, disguised as a British cruiser by the addition of a dummy smoke stack complementing the single stack already in place bombarded Madras setting fire to 50,000 tons of gasoline, later entering Penang harbour ,Malaya ,to sink a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer .During the next seven months Müller managed to destroy another 70,000 tons of shipping. British, French, Japanese and Russian ships scoured the seas looking for him. In November of 1914, he ran into the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Sydney that drove him upon the Cook Islands where his ship sank. Müller was captured but a portion of his crew managed to escape, and, after an ordeal, made their way to North Africa and made their way back to Germany.
The Konisberg had met her end at the hands of the aircraft supported by ships. Captain Müller had managed to defy the strongest navy in the world by staying far out to sea. Despite all of this the great range of scouting aircraft and the invention of shipboard catapults had sealed his fate ,as they had that of the Koninsberg.