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As British forces in the region mobilized to find and destroy Dresden and Karlsruhe, Lüdecke headed for the Pacific, steaming through the Straits of Magellan at the tip of South America in early September. There, at the Chilean port of Punta Arenas, Lüdecke received new orders to link up with Germany’s East Asia Squadron.
The East Asia Squadron, under the command of Reichsgraf Maximilian von Spec, was Germany’s only fleet in the Pacific. Based in Tsingtao, China, von Spec’s ships included the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the light cruisers Emden, Leipzig and Nürnberg. When the war began, von Spec ordered his squadron out to sea, realizing that the allied forces outnumbered and outgu
Von Spec’s squadron rendezvoused with Dresden at Easter Island in early October. Then they all then steamed for Chile and the island of Mas a Tierra. There, von Spec learned that a pursuing British squadron, under the command of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, had followed Dresden into the Pacific. Spec and his captains decided to head to the Chilean mainland port of Coronel, in the hope of finding and destroying HMS Glasgow, which was coaling there. Instead, they ran into most of the British squadron.
The two forces met in battle on the afternoon of November 1, 1914. The fight started with the Germans in a better position — the British were firing into the setting sun and could not see as well. Within a few hours, von Spec’s ships had devastated Cradock’s. Cradock’s own ship, Good Hope, on fire and hit many times, exploded and sank with no survivors. HMS Monmouth also sank after a point-blank pounding from the German cruiser Nürnberg which fired seventy-five rounds into the burning ship to finish it off; there were no survivors. The Battle of Coronel was the Royal Navy’s first defeat at sea in over a century, and it filled the British with a strong desire for retribution.
After Coronel, von Spec kept his squadron in the Pacific to hunt the enemy, despite orders to return to Germany. When von Spec finally decided to move into the Atlantic, his procrastination had allowed the British enough time to create a new battle force, this one under the command of Vice-Admiral Frederick Sturdee. When von Spec and his ships arrived at the Falkland Islands to raid them, Sturdee and his fleet were waiting in ambush. The British cruisers could outrun and outgun the German ships, and in an unequal battle, Sturdee chased down and sank all but one of von Spec’s fleet. The first to die was Scharnhorst, with von Spec aboard; there were no survivors. Gneisenau sank next after a hard fight; the British pulled only 190 of the 765 crew from the water, and many of the badly wounded Germans died after being rescued. The smaller cruisers— Leipzig, Dresden and Nürnberg—ran for it, but soon Leipzig, out of ammunition, her mainmast and two fu
Of all of von Spec’s squadron, only Dresden escaped the carnage, outru
After returning to Punta Arenas for coal, Dresden steamed into the narrow cha
With only 80 tons of coal left, which was not enough to go anywhere, Dresden arrived at Mas a Tierra on March 8 with a rust-streaked hull and worn-out machinery. Lüdecke argued with Chilean authorities for more than the legal limit of twenty-four hours for a combatant to remain in a neutral port, claiming that his coal situation and the ship’s condition required more time. He also radioed passing ships in vain, seeking more coal to help them escape. But he also knew that as a last resort he could land his crew and intern them with the ship for the duration of the war.
The British intercepted one of Dresden’s radio calls for coal on March 13 and raced for Mas a Tierra. At 8:40 the next morning, Kent and Glasgow, along with the auxiliary cruiser (Drama, sighted Dresden at anchor in Cumberland Bay and opened fire, despite the fact that they were violating Chile’s neutrality and breaking international law. Less than three hours later, Dresden, shattered and burning, sank. Most of the crew had made it ashore and survived the final battle. They remained in Chile until 1919 as unwilling guests of the Chileans, interned in accord with the international agreements that the British had ignored. Some of the German officers escaped and made their way home to fight again in a war that would continue for three more years. But the sinking of Dresden, following the earlier destruction of Emden in the Indian Ocean, brought an end to the naval war in the Pacific. The last of the proud East Asia Squadron of the Reichsgraf von Spec lay rusting in the deep, a legacy for the future when explorers and archeologists would venture into the sea to reconstruct her final hours.
The empty sea surrounds our ship for as far as the eye can see, nearly 500 miles off the coast of Chile. Our ship gently rolls in the swell as we drive west at 16 knots. The Armada de Chile (Chilean Navy) ship Valdivia, an amphibious landing ship, is a day out from Valparaiso, en route to the Archipelago de Juan Fernandez and an island with a romantic name and a famous history, Isla Robinson Crusoe (also known as Mas a Tierra). The island is one of the world’s most inaccessible and remote places, home to some five hundred people and host to only a few hundred more each year. The tourists are mainly Chileans who come to visit the island’s unique ecosystem or who are drawn, like others before them, by one of literature’s most famous castaways, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
In addition to her other duties, Valdivia makes two trips to Isla Robinson Crusoe each year. The ship carries 177 passengers, as well as their baggage and other items and equipment that have no other way of reaching this isolated Chilean colony. Our Sea Hunters crew of eleven hauls tons of dive equipment, cameras and other gear into the large tank bay below the main deck and into our berths. Our team has come to dive and film an episode about the Imperial German Navy’s small cruiser Dresden, eighty-eight years after she sank. We will be the first to dive down and return with detailed images and extensive footage of the wrecked warship in her grave 180 feet below the surface.
Our team includes Dr. Willi Kramer, the first German official to visit the wreck and the graves of some of Dresden’s sailors, who are buried ashore. Willi’s professional expertise is Viking and medieval sites, but he now finds himself drawn around the world to document the legacy of the First World War.