SMS Albatross (1907)

Model at Deutsches Marinemuseum, Wilhelmshaven
History
German Empire
Name:	Albatross
Builder:	AG Weser, Bremen
Cost:	3,014,000 German gold mark
Laid down:	1907
Launched:	23 October 1907
Commissioned:	19 May 1908
Out of service:	23 January 1919
Struck:	21 March 1921
Fate:	Beached 2 July 1915, salvaged, interned at Oskarshamn, sold for scrap, broken up 1921
General characteristics
Class & type:	Nautilus-class minelayer
Displacement:	2,506 metric tons (2,466 long tons; 2,762 short tons)
Length:	100.9 m (331 ft 0 in) o/a
Beam:	11.5 m (37 ft 9 in)
Draught:	4.4 m (14 ft 5 in)
Propulsion:	2 shafts 2 × three cylinder triple expansion engines, 4 water-tube boilers, 6,600 PS (6,510 ihp; 4,850 kW)
Speed:	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Range:	3,680 nautical miles (6,820 km; 4,230 mi) @ 9 kn
Complement:	11 officers, 197 men
Armament:	8 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns 288 mines

SMS Albatross^{[Note 1]} was a German minelaying cruiser built before World War I. Albatross took part in a battle with Russian cruisers off the island of Gotland on 2 July 1915, where the ship was severely damaged, and forced to beach herself in neutral Swedish waters. The ship was salvaged after the war, in 1921.^[1]

Design

Albatross was equipped with eight 8.8 cm SK L/45 naval guns.^{[Note 2]} The guns fired 22 lb (10.0 kg) shells at a muzzle velocity of 2133 feet per second. The guns could elevate to 25 degrees, for a maximum range of 10,500 yd (31,500 ft; 9,600 m).^[2] The ship also carried 288 mines.

Service history

SMS Albatross beached after the battle

On 2 July 1915, Albatross, the light cruiser SMS Augsburg, and three destroyers were en route to lay mines in Russian waters when the ships were attacked by a superior Russian force—the armored cruisers Bayan and Admiral Makarov and the light cruisers Bogatyr and Oleg. Augsburg escaped, while the three destroyers covered her retreat. Albatross was severely damaged and forced to beach on the Swedish island of Gotland.^[1]

27 out of 238 crew members were killed in this action and 49 were wounded. 26 of the killed German sailors were buried the same evening the battle was fought in a mass grave just east of Östergarn Church. One crew had fallen overboard and could not be found. Two of the crew members who died during transportation to Roma were buried at Björke cemetery. The surviving German crew were interned, first in Roma, then at Blåhäll in Tofta.^[3] In 1917 they were moved to a camp in Skillingaryd in Småland on the Swedish mainland.^[4]

In July 1915, the ship was refloated by the Swedes and interned at Oskarshamn, returned to Kiel after the war in January 1919, and scrapped in 1921.^[1]

Notes

1. "SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German.
2. In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnelladekanone) denotes that the gun is quick loading, while the L/45 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/45 gun is 45 calibers, meaning that the gun is 45 times long as it is in diameter.

Footnotes

1. Gardiner and Gray (1984), p. 158
2. Gardiner and Gray (1984), p. 140
3. Öhrman (1994), p. 232
4. "Albatrossmuseet" [Albatross Museum] (in Swedish). Ostergarnslandet.se. Retrieved 9 December 2015.

References

• Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1984). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1922. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-907-3.
• Öhrman, Roger (1994). Vägen till Gotlands historia [The road to Gotland's history]. Gotländskt arkiv, 0434-2429 ; 66(1994):specialvol. (in Swedish). Visby: Gotlands fornsal. p. 232. ISBN 91-88036-13-8.