The Emden and the ones who got away
SMS Emden
was a German light cruiser and commerce raider in the Indian Ocean during the
early months of the First World War.
After destroying 25 merchant vessels and 2 Allied
warships, Captain Karl von Müller of the Emden
decided to sail to Direction Island in the Cocos Island group and
destroy the cable station there, with the aim of disrupting Allied
communications and making the hunt for his ship even more difficult.
Emden
reached Direction Island on 9 November 1914 and the ship’s First Lieutenant, Hellmuth
von Mücke, was dispatched with a 53-man landing party to destroy the
station and the intercontinental communications cable.
When the landing party arrived in the lagoon at
Direction Island they discovered a derelict schooner, the Ayesha, lying at anchor there. Von Mücke resolved to destroy the schooner as well, but fortunately
decided that first the party should concentrate on the main task; the
destruction of the communications station and cable.
As the Germans landed a wireless operator had time
to send out a message they were being attacked, and this message brought the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, which had been escorting the
first convoy of New Zealand and Australian troops bound for Europe, steaming
towards the island.
But in the meantime the landing party had time to destroy
the station and its radio mast. The English station staff asked the Germans if
they could stop the mast toppling onto their tennis court, and the sailors
happily obliged! (But the mast then
crashed onto the station’s supply of Scotch whisky!)
Soon afterwards the landing party were ordered
to urgently return to the Emden. However
before they could reach her, the Sydney
arrived. When the Emden sailed out to engage Sydney,
the party returned to the island. Despite
being invited by the station staff to a game of tennis, von Mücke apologised
that he had more important things to do and went to observe the battle. From the roof of the highest house he had a
grandstand view of the Emden and his
shipmates being blown apart.
The story of the Direction Island Cable Station and the Battle of Cocos Island includes Kapitӓnleutnant von Mücke’s report on the battle and how the landing party finally left Direction Island.
Some of the photos in the following montage show
the station and mast after being destroyed by the Germans. Now the Ayesha
was their only means of escape –
fortuitously they hadn’t yet scuttled her! The lower right photos in the montage show
the landing party getting stores ready and preparing to leave the island and
make their final escape.
Von Mücke’s men sailed the Ayesha to rendezvous with the German freighter Choising near Padang in, what was then known as, the Dutch East
Indies. Choising took the men to the German wireless station at Hodeida in
the Yemen at the mouth of the Red Sea, where they arrived on 9 January 1915. In Hodeida the Germans hired two sambuks (sailing
boats) and sailed north along the coast.
After one boat ran aground on a coral reef, they hired a larger vessel
and sailed to Al Lith further up the coast of the Red Sea.
From there von Mücke marched his men overland to
Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. They were
attacked by Bedouins and fought running battles for several days. Two sailors were killed and another was
wounded before they reached Jeddah.
After sailing up the coast to Al Wajh, they travelled by the Hejaz
Railway to Damascus, and then travelled on to Constantinople which they reached
on 23 May 1915.
Truth is sometimes better than fiction!
Author:
Chris Paxton
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