SMS Medusa (1864)
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| Construction data | ||
| Ship type | Smooth deck corvette | |
| Ship class | Nymph class | |
| Builder: | Royal Shipyard , Gdansk | |
| Launch : | October 20, 1864 | |
| in service: | April 12, 1864 | |
| painted: | April 5, 1881 | |
| Sister ships | SMS nymph | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Displacement : | Construction: t Maximum: 1,202 t |
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| Length: |
KWL : m over everything: 64.9 m |
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| Width: | 10.2 m | |
| Draft : | 4.4 m | |
| Machinery: |
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| Number of screws: | 1 double-leaf (Ø 3.64 m) | |
| Power: | PSi | |
| Top speed: | 8 kn | |
| Range: | 3420 nm at 10 kn | |
| Fuel supply: | 218 t | |
| Rig | ||
| Rigging : | Full ship | |
| Masts: | 3 | |
| Sail area: | 1500 m² | |
| Crew size: | approx. 190 men | |
| Armament | ||
| originally: | 10 - smooth 36-pounder 6 - rifled 12-pounder |
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| 1872: | 17-12 cm L23 ring cannons | |
| Whereabouts | ||
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SMS Medusa was a smooth-deck corvette of the Imperial Navy . She was the second ship of the Nymph class after the official draft of 1861, which was procured for foreign service. In 1867/68 it was used in the Mediterranean Sea under the flag of the North German Confederation, and in East Asia from 1869 to 1871. From 1875 to 1880 there were further assignments as a ship boy training ship for the Imperial Navy.
In 1881 the training ship Medusa was deleted from the fleet list. The hull was used as a barge in Gdansk until 1891, when it was scrapped.
History of Medusa
SMS Medusa was launched on October 20, 1864 at the Royal Shipyard in Danzig . She was one of the two smooth-deck corvettes of the Nymph class. Smooth-deck corvettes were, in the terminology of the time, corvettes whose cannons - unlike covered corvettes - were open on the upper deck. Her sister ship Nymphe was also launched at the Danzig shipyard in 1863. The decision to build the smaller corvettes was made in 1861, when the procurement of the five larger Arcona- class screw frigates had not yet been completed. The Danzig shipyard was to carry out the construction, except for the propulsion system, from building materials and parts produced domestically. The ships were named after characters from Greek mythology. The Medusa was a monster that petrified the viewer. The new corvettes displaced 1202 t when fully equipped, were 64.9 m long and 10.2 m wide. They had an expansion steam engine for 8 knots (kn) speed and were rigged as a full ship with 1500 m² sail area. Initially , the Medusa were armed with 10 smooth 36-pounders and six rifled 12-pounders. The Medusa , which was completed in autumn 1865, carried out a few test drives between Danzig and Swinoujscie in September , but was not put into service for the time being because of the war with Austria.
First missions
The first commissioning took place on April 10, 1867. The new corvette carried out further test drives from Kiel , partly together with the covered corvette Hertha , and promoted the Prussian fleet with passenger trips among the participants of the XIV Evangelical Church Congress. On September 14, 1867, the Medusa left with the Hertha and the gunboat Blitz for a trip to the eastern Mediterranean. The ships also had the transfer crew for the new frigate Kronprinz to Portsmouth on board. There the flag of the newly created North German Confederation was hoisted for the first time on October 1st . The first active deployment of the Medusa took place at the end of October together with the Blitz and ships of other states off Crete to protect the Greek population from attacks by the Turkish occupation forces. On December 8th, the "North German" units united in front of Smyrna and the longest-serving officer of the association, Captain Eduard Heldt , embarked on the Medusa for a visit to the Turkish government, since he was not the Dardanelles with his larger flagship Hertha was allowed to happen. The Medusa then made another round trip in the Aegean Sea in January 1868 and then returned to Kiel via Alexandria from February 16 until mid-April. A planned trip to East Asia was not made and the corvette was decommissioned on May 15, 1868.
Use on the East Asian station
The Medusa was put back into service on August 20, 1868 . Before the planned voyage to East Asia, the ship came to the shipyard in Gdansk for a month and then embarked on October 20. Via Brazil, where the Brazilian Emperor Pedro II visited the corvette on December 15th and where it stayed over Christmas and the New Year, SMS Medusa ran from January 3rd, 1869 a. a. via Sankt Paul Island and Batavia, today's Jakarta , to Singapore by March 4 , where she reached the designated area of the East Asian Station , which was now officially established and the Commander of the Medusa (KK Struben) as the first longest-serving naval officer of this Made station. In addition to safeguarding the political and commercial interests of the North German Confederation, the corvette should also explore suitable points for the establishment of a naval station . The High Command of the Navy thought of Blair's Harbor near Kuantan on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula , the Linschoten Islands in the Riu Kiu group between Formosa and Japan, and the Goto Islands west of Nagasaki at the entrance to the Korea Strait . Because of the report from the northern German ambassador to Japan about the persecution of Christians there, the Medusa continued to Japan on May 16. On the way she took part in the conversion of the Prussian Consulate General into a "North German" in Hong Kong . Starting in June in Japanese waters, she visited various ports. The Medusa was one from late August to foreign warships off Jeddo (now Tokyo) and Yokohama , which forced by the Japanese authorities more opportunities for movement within Japan for trade missions. During its time off the Japanese coast, the ship suffered damage from a typhoon ridden at sea and a collision with a drifting ship in a storm. From November 15, an operation against Chinese pirates followed in the area around Macau , where they worked with the gunboats of other countries. The commander of the corvette advised in his report to Berlin that the North German Confederation should follow the example and also station a shallow gunboat in the waters around Canton (now Guangzhou ), Macau and Hong Kong. At the end of January 1870, the Medusa visited Bangkok , took part in the funeral ceremonies for the late Siamese king and negotiated compensation for a German sailing ship that was rammed and sunk on the Mekong. On April 10, 1870, the corvette began the return journey via Saigon (today Ho Chi Minh City ) to Hong Kong, where it suffered serious engine damage and was only able to continue sailing under sail. The French authorities made repairs possible at the state shipyard in Saigon, and an injured Medusa sailor was able to travel back to Europe on a French ship from there. The complete repair of the machine was not possible in Saigon and the Medusa had to go to the Yokohama shipyard in early July 1970. On June 23, she met the covered corvette Hertha , who had been sent from home to reinforce the station, and whose commander, Captain Heinrich Koehler , took over command of the station.
On August 15, 1870, the officers of the Medusa took part in the celebration of Napoléon Day on a French armored corvette in Yokohama. Neither side was aware of the war that broke out in Europe on July 19. The Germans only learned of this a few days later. Hertha , located in Nagasaki , then moved to Yokohama to the non-operational Medusa , where machine damage also had to be repaired on the hull and rigging. Most of the French East Asia Squadron blocked the two German ships in Yokohama so that the bulk of the German merchant ships could get to safety. The "inaction" of the two ships was partly criticized at home. After the peace agreement in Europe, SMS Medusa received the order to travel home. The corvette left Japan in mid-April 1871 and reached Kiel around the Cape of Good Hope on August 26, where it was thoroughly examined and decommissioned on October 10, 1871.
Since the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel was still unfinished, the Medusa had to be transferred to Danzig in August 1872, where the necessary basic repairs were carried out in the shipyard of the corvette; At the same time, some modifications were made because of the future intended use as a cabin boy training ship.
Use as a training ship
On March 15, 1875, the Medusa was first put back into service as a training ship. In Kiel she took cabin boys on board with whom she cruised on the Baltic Sea and also visited Swedish and Norwegian ports. At the end of August she went on a large training trip to South America and the West Indies. The corvette visited Santos and Montevideo . On the way back north on January 9, 1876, the ship received the order in Barbados to break off the tour through the West Indies. The training ship should run to Lisbon and conduct intensive weapons training on the way. The termination of the school trip was justified with alleged desertions to the outside world. In fact, the German government wanted to have a warship available because of unrest in the Balkans, without putting a unit of the fleet back into service prematurely.
Medusa , which arrived before Lisbon in mid-February, was dispatched to Messina in mid-March , from where she immediately proceeded to Saloniki , where the French and German consul general had been murdered ( Salonika murder ). When the Medusa arrived off Saloniki on May 15, 1876, several warships from other nations were already gathered there, the number of which increased to 29. The German station gunboat Meteor had relocated to Smyrna , while the gunboat Nautilus , which was leaving for East Asia, had been redirected to Constantinople on April 19 before crossing the Suez Canal .
The German naval unit, which was routinely put into service, left Wilhelmshaven under Rear Admiral Karl Ferdinand Batsch on May 22, 1876 with the tank frigates Kaiser , Deutschland , Kronprinz and Friedrich Carl as well as the Aviso Pommerania Wilhelmshaven and arrived on June 25 outside Saloniki. On the 26th the gunboat Comet followed , which was supposed to replace the Nautilus in Constantinople. The Medusa was released in mid-July and still cruised in the Mediterranean through August to complete her cabin boy training. It reached Kiel on September 21 and was decommissioned on the 30th.
On April 4, 1877, the SMS Medusa came back into service as a ship boy training ship and stayed in the Baltic Sea until the beginning of July, where she also called at Swedish ports. On July 27th she began her big trip abroad, which led in the south to Rio de Janeiro. When she was in front of Saint Thomas for gun training on January 6, 1878, the order came to take action against Nicaragua . On the Pacific side, the corvettes Elisabeth (flagship) and Ariadne and the frigate Leipzig formed a small squadron against Nicaragua. (see → Eisenstuck Affair ) On February 16, the Medusa ran from Saint Thomas to Colón , from where an officer was sent to Nicaragua to investigate. On April 16, the Medusa moved to San Juan del Norte . Since the German demands were given in, she was able to continue her training voyage on April 18 without the use of weapons and ran home via US ports. She arrived in Kiel on September 15, 1878 and was taken out of service on the 28th.
On April 4, 1879, the SMS Medusa came into service for the last time as a ship boy training ship and stayed in the sea area around Danzig in May / June. On July 15th, she began her big trip abroad, which led in the south to Bahia . She then visited many of the Antilles Islands, La Guaira and Puerto Cabello . In May 1880 she was in Norfolk and from mid-June to mid-July in Halifax . She arrived in Kiel on September 10, 1880 and was taken out of service on the 30th. A preliminary investigation at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel showed that Medusa would only be able to continue to be used with a comprehensive basic repair. It was transferred to Danzig, where on closer inspection it was found that the repair effort no longer made sense.
SMS Medusa was removed from the list of warships on April 5, 1881. The hull was only sold for demolition in 1891.
Commanders
| April 1867 - October 1871 | KK Marinus Struben | 1826-1884 | last KzS |
| August 1872 | KK Heinrich Kühne | 1838-1926 | Vice admiral |
| March 1875 - September 1876 | KK Paul Zirzow | 1838-1912 | Rear admiral |
| April 1877 - September 1878 | KK Friedrich Hollmann | 1842-1913 | admiral |
| April 1879 - September 1880 | KK Gustav Matthesen | 1842- ?? | KzS |
| November - December 1880 | KL Franz Junge | 1846- ?? | KzS |
literature
- Ernst Gröner: All German warships from 1815-1936 . BoD - Books on Demand, 2010, ISBN 3-86195-391-9 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehler's publishing company, Herford, seven volumes
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Volume 5, p. 25
- ↑ a b c d e f g Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Volume 4, p. 113
- ↑ Groener: All German Warships , p. 44
- ↑ Hildebrand et al. a., Volume 4, p. 112
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Hildebrand u. a., Volume 4, p. 114
- ↑ Hildebrand et al. a .: The German Warships , Volume 3, p. 71
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