Report of Meeting of 15th November: Anne Samson, Hunt for the Königsberg

The Königsberg was laid down in January 1905, launched in the following
year and commissioned in April 1907. She was refurbished in 1913 and left Kiel on
1st April 1914 for East Africa where she arrived in Dar e Salaam in June. On 31st
July the German Governor was due on board, but the ship was ordered to sail because
of the forthcoming war.
Commander Max Looff was in command and had a crew of14 officers and 308
men, including some black and Asian crew. The armament consisted of ten 10.5cm
guns, ten 5.2cm guns and two 45cm torpedo tubes. On the outbreak of war, HMS
Pegasus, Astraea and Hyacinth left Mauritius and headed towards East Africa.
Hyacinth and Königsberg passed within 3,000yds of each other but the faster
Königsberg escaped northwards where she commenced raiding and also met up with
a coaler SS Somali. In the Gulf of Aden she encountered the SS City of Winchester
which was carrying the first tea harvest of the season and the latter was captured and
sunk, having taken all her coal. By now Königsberg’s boilers needed an overhaul,
probably to her boilers, affected by poor quality coal and she sought shelter in the
Rufiji Delta. After these essential works, Königsberg left the delta for Zanzibar
where she found and sank HMS Pegasus, after an engagement which killed 38 British 

sailors, including gunnery officer Lieutenant Richard Turner. After this Königsberg
headed back to the Rufiji Delta, sinking the Helmuth on the way.
The British now knew where she was but not exactly which channel she had
used, as there were many shallow channels in the area. Captain Sidney Drury-Lowe
was sent in HMS Chatham to search for the Königsberg which was made easier as the
latter frequently broke radio silence to request food and other stores. Capturing a
local island enabled the British to gain local knowledge of the area and blockade the
entrances to the delta. In part this was done using the captured German ship
Adjutant. On another captured ship the Präsident, maps showing the channels of the
delta were found enabling the blocking of the best channels. Chatham attacked the
Königsberg as the tops of her masts (disguised as palm trees) were just visible, but
only succeeded in sinking the collier Somali.
It was therefore decided to use aircraft for the attack. Denis Cutler ran pleasure
flights around Durban Bay in South Africa and he was commissioned into the Royal
Marines and was tasked with spotting the Königsberg. He did do this but was not
believed although his findings were confirmed on a subsequent flight with a Royal
Navy observer. Another civilian involved in the story was Philip Praetorius, a farmer
from German East Africa. He spied for the British behind German lines and was
taken to find the Königsberg. After a while he found the father of a ship’s cook and
persuaded him to ask his son various questions, for example about the number of
torpedoes on board. A trained doctor, Emma Notchell, was onboard the Königsberg
and Praetorius kidnapped her so she would not be killed in the event of the ship being
sunk. The two of them eventually married.
J.T Cull with 20 men of the RNAS was sent from Aden to take over from
Cutler which resulted in the first aerial photograph of the Königsberg. It was decided
to send two low draft heavily gunned monitors, HMS Severn and HMS Mersey into
the delta. They entered during the night of the 6th July 1915 to try to evade the
German observation posts. 365 shells were fired at the German ship but only 4 were
close to her. It was then decided to launch a surprise midday air attack which
successfully put the Königsberg out of action, with 19 of the crew killed and 44
wounded. The former were buried on land next to the ship. The Germans then
removed the heavy guns for use in the land campaign (as had the guns from the
Pegasus, by the British) and scuttled the ship. The sinking was confirmed by
Praetorius. The surviving crew made their way to Dar e Salaam where they helped to
defend the port, until they surrendered on 27th November 1917. Lasting a few days
over 11 months, the hunt for the Königsberg was one of the longest naval campaigns
of the war.