Cyclop (ship, 1875)
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The SMS Cyclop (another source also Kyklop ) was a gunboat of the Imperial Navy . It was mainly used in foreign service.
construction
After the establishment of the German Empire , the newly created Imperial Navy was faced with growing tasks overseas. The existing gunboats CAMäleon - and Albatross class were not sufficient for their completion soon of more. In 1873, however, the opportunity arose to commission an inexpensive new building that used well-preserved parts of the Cyclop and Camaeleon that had been scrapped due to their poor structural condition .
Accordingly, in the same year the Imperial Admiralty commissioned the Imperial Shipyard in Danzig to build a new hull. The new building was ready for launch on August 5, 1874 and was named after its direct predecessor Cyclop . The ship was fully equipped until the spring of 1875.
technology
The new building was based on the Camaeleon class, but was slightly larger than this. The ship was 43.3 m long and 7.0 m wide. With a maximum displacement of 531 t, the draft was 3.0 m. In contrast to the earlier gunboats, the Cyclop was given an iron hull instead of a wooden kraweel-covered hull. However, the decks were also made of wood ( composite construction ). The ship did not have any additional armor.
Propulsion system
The gunboat was given a barque rigging with 510 m² of sail area and also had the boiler and machinery of the Cyclop built in 1860 . This consisted of two horizontal single-cylinder steam engines that acted on a common shaft and drove a screw 1.9 m in diameter. The power of the engine system could be increased to 380 PSi , it gave the ship a top speed of 9.1 knots. The necessary steam was supplied by two suitcase boilers, each with two firing systems and generating a steam pressure of 2.0 atmospheres .
Armament
The armament of the Cyclop initially consisted of two 12 cm L / 23 ring cannons , for which 165 rounds of ammunition were carried and which had a maximum range of 5.5 km. In addition, there were two 4 cm balloon cannons on board. These came from the Franco-Prussian War and were used at the time to fight French free balloons that were supposed to ensure the connection between besieged Paris and the surrounding area. The two cannons were mounted on the railing of the Cyclop and intended for the destruction of the sails of Chinese pirate junks . However, the balloon cannons were not used. They were replaced by two 8.7 cm L / 24 ring cannons by 1881. In addition, three 3.7 cm automatic cannons came on board.
commitment
Service in East Asia
The Cyclop entered service on March 27, 1875. The gunboat carried out test drives until the beginning of May. It was found that the Camaeleon- class ship had comparably poor sea characteristics, was very wet and lurched heavily. After completion of the test drives, the Cyclop was equipped for her first mission in East Asia and left German waters on May 9, 1875. On July 17th, the ship arrived in Singapore and was ordered to pay a visit to the Siamese king . On August 9th, a meeting with Ariadne and Hertha took place in Hong Kong .
After the Chinese crew of the Flensburg schooner Anna murdered the captain and the helmsman in front of Futschau on September 27 and put the ship on the beach, where it was completely looted by the population, the Cyclop immediately began to search the numerous bays. Both the schooner and part of the cargo were found, and the murderers and looters were punished. Planned further measures were prohibited by the German legation in Beijing. This ultimately led to the regulation of the powers of the German warships operating in East Asia by the head of the Admiralty, Admiral Albrecht von Stosch .
In February and March 1876, the Cyclop visited the island of Typinsan . In early July 1873, the German schooner RJ Robertson ran aground on a reef off the island during a typhoon . Despite the bad weather, some residents of the village of Ueno put boats out, rescued the eight castaways and tried to salvage the ship's inventory without accepting anything in return. In February 1874, Kaiser Wilhelm I therefore gave the order to erect a monument on the island as a visible sign of appreciation and thanks. The Cyclop followed this order. The monument was completed on March 22, 1876. Based on the diary of Eduard Hernsheim, the captain of the RJ Robertson , the book The Downfall of the German Schooner "RJ Robertson" and the reception of the shipwrecked on the island "Typinsau" was published, of which the second edition appeared in 1881. In 1936, on the 60th anniversary of the inauguration, a commemoration took place, on the occasion of which the Japanese post office issued a special cancellation. In 1972 the monument was supposed to be moved, but its condition was so bad that it had to be replaced by a replica . When they were unveiled, the German ambassador presented donations to the Federal Republic of Germany amounting to DM 10,000 and the Hanseatic City of Hamburg amounting to DM 3,000. Against the background of these events, the German Cultural Village Ueno theme park was created on the island from 1995 onwards .
On March 24, 1876, the Cyclop left Typinsan again and went to Hong Kong, where another meeting with Hertha and Ariadne took place. After the Vineta also arrived, the handover of command of the ships stationed in East Asia took place from Eduard Knorr to Alexander von Monts . While the Hertha and the Ariadne then started their journey home, the four remaining ships, in addition to the Cyclop and the Vineta , the Luise and the Nautilus , were combined into a squadron. For the Cyclop , an active travel activity began in the East Asian station area , especially in the Yellow Sea . Many of the large port cities were called, but trips were also made on the large rivers as far as Siberia . Furthermore, the mapping of various coastal areas represented an important area of responsibility. During the winter months, the gunboat was mostly in Tientsin .
Due to these years of uninterrupted activity, a basic repair was necessary at the end of 1880, which, however, should not be carried out by foreign shipyards due to excessive prices. The Cyclop therefore started its journey home on January 1, 1881 and arrived in Kiel on April 28 . The Imperial Shipyard there began repairs shortly afterwards.
Fisheries protection and the Middle East
The Cyclop was put back into service on April 1, 1882. It was initially used for fisheries protection in the North Sea. On August 7, the gunboat received the order to go to the eastern Mediterranean. There were a result of the uprising to Ahmed Pasha Urabi German citizen and economic interests threatened. In the Egyptian waters at this time the hawk , the gneisenau , the nymph and the seagull were already present, but they wanted to send a shallow ship there.
The Cyclop arrived in Port Said on October 2, 1882 , after engine damage had occurred during the departure and forced a delay. She remained in Alexandria until January 1883, in order to subsequently bring Prince Friedrich Karl Nikolaus of Prussia from Suez to El-Tor on the west coast of the Sinai peninsula . Three men of the crew accompanied the prince on his journey ashore back to Suez. There the Cyclop took him on board again and brought him to Jaffa , where the ship arrived on February 19, 1883. Since the situation in Egypt had calmed down, the gunboat received the order to return home on May 1 and arrived in Wilhelmshaven on July 21 .
On August 19, 1883, the Cyclop resumed fisheries protection and continued until it was decommissioned on October 16. In the following year, this task had to be taken over again, as there were attacks by British fishermen on German fishing vessels. In August and September, the gunboat was involved in the autumn maneuvers of the fleet.
Service in Cameroon
Although the Cyclop was also intended for fisheries protection in 1885, the Admiralty was forced to send the gunboat there due to the lack of smaller warships in the German protected areas in West Africa . The ship's air conditioning has been improved for this new application. The Cyclop left on April 23, 1885 and reached Duala on July 6 . Several cruises along the coast of Cameroon followed , during which cartographic surveys were carried out.
The crew suffered repeatedly from the difficult climatic conditions. Several crew members fell victim to malaria . A provisional hospital was initially used to care for the sick, which later had a building that could be dismantled from Germany as accommodation. These experiences led to the fact that the crew was changed after one instead of the usual two years. The troop transports took over the Luise , because at that time there was no regular scheduled service to Cameroon.
After a minor repair carried out in Luanda in January 1886 , the Cyclop was involved in unrest suppression in February and took part in the laying of the foundation stone for the seat of the first governor of Cameroon, Julius von Soden , in June. From September 10 to 16, a visit to St. Helena took place to help the crew relax , where memorials to Napoleon Bonaparte were viewed. At the beginning of October, Kapitänleutnant Stubenrauch let the gunboat dry out in the Wouri estuary in order to be able to carry out repairs on the outer skin of the Cyclop . In December, another visit to the shipyard in Luanda became necessary.
In April and May 1887, the Cyclop was involved in the handover of Bonnys in the course of an area swap to Great Britain. In the middle of 1888, the ship provided a cover team for an expedition led by Richard Kund and Hans Tappenbeck into the hinterland of Cameroon, during which the Yaounde station - today under the name Yaoundé capital of the country - was founded in early 1889 . In autumn there were local riots in the Batanga area , and the cyclop was used to suppress them .
Due to the meanwhile heavily worn machine system - it could only reach a speed of around 2 knots - and the unprofitable renewed basic repair, the Cyclop was decommissioned on November 1st, 1888 in Duala. She had previously given the guns, ammunition and other equipment to a cargo ship going to Germany. Interestingly, the removal from the list of warships had already occurred before the decommissioning on September 25th.
Whereabouts
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The Cyclop remained in Cameroon as a hospital, magazine and workshop bulk. She received a permanent crew, which consisted of a deck officer and some sailors . The machinery and masts were removed in 1900. After the outbreak of the First World War and the occupation of Cameroon by Great Britain, the ship was confiscated by the British, sold and subsequently scrapped.
Commanders
| March 27 to May 1875 | Corvette Captain Arendt |
| May 1875 to August 1877 | Lieutenant Captain Ernst von Reiche |
| August 1877 to November 1878 | Lieutenant Captain Victor Cochius |
| November 1878 to May 5, 1881 | Captain Hugo von Schuckmann |
| April 1, 1882 to October 16, 1883 | Lieutenant Chalice |
| March 25 to September 30, 1884 | Lieutenant Richard Hornung |
| April 14, 1885 to November 1886 | Captain Felix Stubenrauch |
| November 1886 to November 1887 | Lieutenant von Halfern |
| December 1887 to November 1, 1888 | Lieutenant Captain Hermann Schneider |
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 164 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 2 : Ship biographies from Baden to Eber . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 202-206 .
Footnotes
- ↑ von Kronenfels, JF: The floating fleet material of the sea powers . A brief description of the major European, American, and Asian warships of recent and recent times . A. Hartleben's Verlag, Vienna, Pest, Leipzig 1881, p. 71 .