The Pomeranian belonged to the Germany class . These ships were already obsolete when they were completed, as they were still of the unit line ship type and inferior to the new dreadnoughts with unit caliber in size, firepower and speed. Nevertheless, the Pomeranian and its sister ships were part of the deep-sea fleet in World War I because they did not have enough modern dreadnoughts.
The Pomeranians in battle. Painting by Wilhelm Malchin.
In the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31 and June 1, 1916, the Pomeranian , under the command of Captain z. S. Bölken, part of the 3rd Division of the 2nd Squadron of Rear Admiral Franz Mauve . At around 7:30 p.m., this squadron was involved in a short but fierce battle with the battlecruiser squadrons commanded by Admiral Beatty . Pomerania also received a heavy hit and left the slaughter line for a short time. Later on, nobody was able to report how hard this hit was, because when the squadron started their way home in the early hours of June 1st, Pomerania was defeated at around 2 a.m. while trying to reach the protective German mine barriers behind the British Grand Fleet , hit by a torpedo, probably from the British destroyer HMS Onslaught . The torpedo impact was followed by a violent explosion, which was probably caused by the ammunition of the middle artillery. The ship broke apart in the middle and sank in no time. Of the 839 crew members, none survived.
As with all ships of the high seas that were in home waters when the war broke out, the bronze bow ornamentation was removed at the beginning of the war and replaced by simpler coats of arms. The Pomeranian front ornament , stored in the arsenal , survived the times and is now exhibited in the Naval Memorial in Laboe.
Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p.44-46 .
Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape6 : Ship biographies from Lützow to Prussia . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S.237f . (Approved licensed edition by Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg approx. 1990).
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