The first stage of rearmament was planning. In neutral ports, it was necessary to organize a certain structure that, in case of war, could purchase local supplies and, loading them onto German merchant ships, take these ships to sea through a possible enemy blockade in order to supply food to raiders deprived of the opportunity to enter their waters. In addition to this, the duty of the branches of this organization, which the Germans called "stages", was to supply the raiders and German naval officers with all kinds of intelligence relating to commerce and shipping that could in principle be useful to them. Moreover, it was assumed that the agents of the “stages” - unpaid volunteers in peacetime - would also carry out small-scale economic warfare operations. Basically, this meant manipulating the activities of the local exchange through the spread of rumors.

In 1928, Admiral Erich Raeder was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy. He held this position until 1943, when he resigned due to fundamental disagreement with Hitler over the use of surface vessels to support submarine operations against Allied merchant shipping. It was Raeder who was involved in the restoration of the German Navy and planning its strategy in World War II. During the First World War, he distinguished himself while on the staff of Admiral Hipper, who commanded the battlecruisers of the High Seas Fleet during the Battle of Jutland, and came to the main post of the Navy with very definite ideas about cruising warfare. In particular, he wrote the first two volumes of the official German history of naval warfare, which dealt with cruising operations in foreign waters, and this probably helped him finalize his position. Three years after planning for the “phases” began, funds began to be secretly allocated in the naval budget to finance them.

In 1934, also secretly, money was allocated for the construction of four auxiliary cruisers (disguised as merchant ships), but these ships were not built because the German army agreed to allocate only 24 5.9-inch caliber guns to the Navy to arm them. This caused bitter jokes in naval circles about “guns or butter.” They said that Goering got the oil, the army got the guns, and the Navy got nothing.

Raeder tried to get these fake merchant ships built because he believed that as long as Germany and its allies did not have bases, they would not be able to use conventional warships as raiders. Raiders would need to be camouflaged as cargo ships, as experience in the First World War had shown that liners used in this capacity were too visible, especially from the air.

In 1934, Raeder failed to obtain guns for his four ships. As a result, in 1939, the German Navy was not preparing to enter service - not a single auxiliary cruiser was being built or converted; However, during the September crisis of 1938, the dress rehearsal of the “stages” system was successfully held.

In the absence of armed trade raiders at the beginning of World War II, Raeder still had to rely on military ships. In accordance with this, immediately before the attack on Poland, the “pocket” battleships “Deutschland” and “Admiral Graf Spee” were sent to sea. By appearance they were immediately recognizable as German ships, but their diesel engines gave them the ability to operate for a long time on the open sea without replenishing fuel supplies.

While the Germans clearly lacked surface raiders, the British and French navies were completely unable to protect Allied merchant ships from those raiders who did manage to put to sea. Such protection could only be provided by a system of convoys on all major trade routes, but a sufficient number of cruisers to escort convoys simply did not exist in nature.

The only possible alternative to convoys was: firstly, patrolling communication nodes through which shipping routes must necessarily pass and which there was no way to bypass; secondly, the organization of the movement of ships along different, constantly changing routes, which meant that merchant ships had to spend additional fuel and time bypassing areas in which raiders were expected to be present. Finally, search groups of battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers were created that could intercept the raiders when their area of ​​operations became known. A total of nine such mixed British-French groups were formed in the early months of the war; they included 4 battleships, 14 cruisers and 5 aircraft carriers. In total, the British and French forces at that time consisted of 23 battleships and 8 aircraft carriers. Thus, as we see, at that time significant Allied forces were spent fighting the two raiders - “pocket” battleships. This clearly shows the seriousness of the situation that the Allies might have found themselves in if Hitler had given Raeder time to develop the first-class surface fleet that he asked for.

Raeder expected his forces to be ready by 1944–1945, and planned operations involving them exclusively as a large-scale cruising war, supported by a flotilla of more than a hundred submarines. For surface warfare, according to Raeder's plans, it was planned to have the following ships:

6 battleships displacing 56,000 tons each with eight 16-inch guns;

2 battleships of 42,000 tons each with eight 15-inch guns;

2 battleships of 31,000 tons each with nine 11-inch guns;

3 battlecruisers of 31,000 tons each with six 15-inch guns;

3 “pocket” battleships of 14,000 tons each with six 11-inch guns;

2 aircraft carriers of 20,000 tons, with 40 aircraft on board;

8 heavy cruisers of 14,000 tons each with eight 8-inch guns;

9 light cruisers of 6,000–8,000 tons each with eight or nine 5.9-inch guns, as well as destroyers and other light vessels.

These ships were supposed to be divided into three groups. The small battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were to remain in German waters and tie up part of the British fleet, while battlecruisers, pocket battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers were to put to sea in as raiders to hunt merchant ships. It was expected that British heavy ships and cruisers would be sent to hunt the raiders and themselves become the target of the hunt for the 56,000-ton battleships, operating in two groups of three each.

To go from these grandiose plans to a situation where the German naval headquarters (SKL or Seekriegsleitung) controlled the movements of just two “pocket” battleships was a severe sobering experience, but Raeder, limiting himself to a message of protest, got to work. It was necessary to wage war with available means.

He needed both ships and bases. As for bases, Raeder hoped that his ships would be able to operate from Russian, Italian (East African) and Japanese ports, although all of these countries were neutral at that time. The use of these ports would save his ships from having to cross the British blockade line, stretching from Scotland to Norway, again and again every time they needed to go to the ocean or return to port. The British blockade line consisted of approximately 25 armed liners; with the outbreak of war they were replaced by similar military vessels and sent to cargo lines.

As soon as the war began, the Germans began converting a number of merchant ships into raiders. The actions of these courts are covered in this book. As already mentioned, there were nine of them in total; another failed to make it across the English Channel, and two more were refitted but never made it to sea. It may seem surprising that out of the entire merchant fleet, which in 1939 numbered 250 ships with a capacity of 5,000 to 10,000 GRT, only ten ships were converted into raiders, however, as we will see, in order to successfully convert into raiders, ships had to have special qualities. However, even among the converted ships, not all of them possessed them.

The conversion of the first ship was completed only at the end of March 1940. A little later it became clear that armed trade raiders would have to, at least initially, replace large warships rather than strengthen the fleet involved in the Norwegian campaign. During its course, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged, and the heavy cruiser Blücher, a ship in the series with Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen, was sunk.

The first winter of the war was marked only by the campaigns of the Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland, as well as the sortie of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, during which the cruiser Rawalpindi, converted from a merchant ship, was sunk. By the beginning of the second military winter, the situation had already completely changed, although by that time the raiders had managed to sink only 11 ships with a total capacity of 59,000 GRT. The fall of France and Italy's entry into the war meant that Britain's forces were stretched almost to breaking point. Most of the battleships, and with them many other ships that had previously acted against raiders on the high seas, were recalled and sent to the Mediterranean Sea. As for the protection of ships on shipping lines, convoys with troops began to receive maximum priority. In the dangerous waters of the North Atlantic, these convoys were fully protected, meaning they were escorted throughout their journey by heavy warships capable of keeping any raider away. Of course, this mattered, but, on the other hand, convoys transporting food and military materials were left with virtually no security. They had to rely mainly on cover forces and search parties.

During the most difficult period of the war, Britain's naval forces were so insufficient that for the North Atlantic, the home fleet and Force H, only two aircraft carriers and five cruisers were found in Gibraltar. While the North Atlantic troop convoys were more or less protected, to protect all other troop convoys around the world there was one R-class battleship (obsolete), eight cruisers and one armed merchant cruiser. All the merchant convoys were left with one more R-class battleship and a handful of armed merchant cruisers. In practice, this meant that ships were forced to sail either without security at all, or as part of caravans with completely inadequate escort. We will see that almost every one of the more than 130 ships sunk by merchant raiders sailed alone, relying only on their own luck. An example of what could happen in the second case is the event that took place in November 1940, when the “pocket” battleship Admiral Scheer entered the ocean. She was the first of the German heavy ships to begin operating in the World Ocean after the battleship of the same type, Graf Spee, was destroyed ten months earlier.

On October 23, the Scheer, under the command of Captain Kranke, left the Kiel Canal through the Brunsbüttel lock into the North Sea and, under the cover of fog, circled the north of Iceland. After that, he was ready to carry out one simple order the captain received: “Attack North Atlantic convoys.”

German naval intelligence reported to Scheer that a large convoy had left Halifax for home on October 27, and the "pocket" battleship hastened to intercept. On the afternoon of November 5, convoy HX-84 was spotted from the battleship. The convoy consisted of 37 ships, accompanied by the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay, under the command of Royal Navy Captain E.S.F. Figena.

It was already getting dark when “Scheer” went on the attack. It was a large, fast and armored vessel with six 11-inch and eight 5.9-inch guns, equipped with modern fire control devices. He was opposed by the slow Jervis Bay, which did not have an ounce of armor, with outdated 6-inch guns, controlled in a completely primitive way.

Spotting the enemy, Captain Fidgen immediately informed the Admiralty of the attack and ordered the convoy to disperse. He rushed towards the enemy at full speed, simultaneously laying a smoke screen in front of the convoy ships. Fidgen hoped to delay the Sheer and allow his charges to disappear into the darkness. As for the fight between his ship and the raider, the captain was well aware that there could only be one result.

The Scheer opened fire from a distance of 18,000 yards, well beyond the range of Jervis Bay's guns, and immediately covered the enemy with fire and continued its bombardment. Less than an hour had passed, and the British ship was already burning from bow to stern. All fire control ceased, although the guns that were still operational continued to fire independently. At 20.00 the Jervis Bay sank, taking with it 200 officers and sailors along with the captain. Meanwhile, the Scheer set off at top speed in pursuit of the scattered merchant ships, but it was already dark and the ships were difficult to find. In addition, the raider had little time left, because Krancke knew that the Jervis Bay had reported an attack, and very soon planes and large warships could appear. He was in such a hurry that he managed to find and sink only five of the thirty-seven ships of the caravan. One of the ships that managed to reach the United Kingdom was the tanker San Demetrio. The raider's shells set the tanker on fire, and the crew abandoned it on boats. Later, one of the boats with the tanker's crew under the command of the second mate returned to the burning ship. The sailors put out the fire and brought the tanker home to the United Kingdom in triumph.

In order to sink 47,000 GRT of ship tonnage, the “pocket” battleship had to spend a third of the ammunition for the main guns and half of the ammunition for the auxiliary guns.

Nevertheless, this event turned out to be almost a disaster for the North Atlantic convoys. The entire system was disorganized for twelve days; and for a whole week not a single convoy of ships arrived in Britain. This was the longest break in the passage of convoys during the entire war. A significant amount of ship's capacity and time were lost; For five weeks, search groups scoured the sea in vain in search of the raider, but he was already in the Indian Ocean. Finally, after meeting with several armed merchant raiders and tankers supplying them with fuel, the Scheer returned to Germany. The campaign lasted 161 days; 16 ships with a total tonnage of 99,000 GRT were sunk.

After receiving encouraging news about the Scheer attack on convoy HX-84, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was also sent to the Atlantic. It, unlike the Scheer, did not have diesel engines, but turbine engines, which meant that it required two and a half times more fuel. In addition, the new type of Admiral Hipper turbines did not work well. It quickly became clear that this magnificent-looking, huge ship was not reliable unless there was a support vessel within 600 miles of it. However, on Christmas Eve, 700 miles west of Cape Finisterre, a convoy transporting troops was spotted from a cruiser. The Admiral Hipper followed the convoy and attacked it with torpedoes at night. All the torpedoes missed, and the cruiser itself was driven away by the escort cruisers, Berwick and Bonaventure. Two days later, Admiral Hipper entered Brest, where she remained until February 1, when she again set sail for the Atlantic. 200 miles east of the Azores, the cruiser spotted a slow-moving unescorted convoy bound for Freetown and sank seven of the nineteen ships. This happened on February 12. Two days later, the Admiral Hipper returned to Brest because its captain was concerned about the condition of the engines and the lack of fuel and ammunition.

It was in February 1941 that raiders - both warships and armed merchant ships - were most active. At that moment there were two battleships at sea - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau - as well as Scheer, Hipper and six merchant ships converted into raiders.

"Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" in a two-month joint voyage dealt with 22 ships with a total tonnage of 115,622 GRT. At the beginning of the campaign, they were almost intercepted by the metropolitan fleet, then both battleships entered the route of convoys heading to Halifax. To replenish fuel supplies, they met several times in the Arctic and subarctic zones with tankers sent to meet them.

On February 8, the raiders discovered convoy HX-106, but the battleship Resolution managed to drive them away. Admiral Lutyens did not want to risk his ships. He feared that the 15-inch guns of the outdated British battleship could cause serious damage to them. In vain did Hofmann, captain of the Scharnhorst, propose to attack the British battleship so that the Gneisenau could deal with the unprotected merchant ships at that time. However, Lutyens, who died shortly afterwards on the Bismarck, could not rid himself of the thought that even relatively minor damage could mean the failure or loss of one of his large ships, and even so far from any friendly base.

After this failure, Lutyens headed further west. He believed that closer to the American coast, British convoys scattered, making it easy to attack single unprotected ships. In fact, five such ships were discovered and sunk, but then the alarm was raised and the German battleships went further south. There they met another British convoy, again under the protection of a single battleship, the Malaya. And again they did not attack for the same reason as during the meeting with Resolution.

After refueling, Lutyens returned to the route to Halifax and again easily sank several unguarded merchant ships from convoys disbanded due to a lack of escort ships.

After a very short meeting with the British battleship Rodney, which was chasing them, like most of the home fleet, the two German ships returned to Brest. There they intended to wait until the Bismarck was ready to go to sea. After this, the three ships were to operate together against North Atlantic convoys.

This was the culmination of the large German surface warships, and Raeder was pleased with their performance.

“A decisive offensive war against merchant ships is the only way to conquer Britain,” he declared on July 25, 1941. “It is possible that German surface forces will gradually be destroyed, but this should not prevent them from acting against transport shipping.”

The losses that Raeder spoke of began with the sinking of the Bismarck; soon after, the RAF locked up Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Brest. The battleships were unable to leave French waters until their famous breakthrough across the English Channel in February 1942.

The RAF raid on Brest caused a temporary lull in heavy warship activity that lasted from the sinking of the Bismarck until the completion of the Tirpitz. An additional obstacle to the active use of large ships was the fact that by the end of December 1941 a very difficult situation had developed in Germany. liquid fuel, since oil imports from Romania have practically ceased. German synthetic fuel plants were capable of producing gasoline for the Luftwaffe and diesel for submarines, but producing fuel oil for large ships was a different matter. Raeder was forced to introduce a strict rationing system. As a result, the Tirpitz had to hide in the Norwegian fjords all its life, with the exception of very rare attacks.

From this point on, the surface war against Allied shipping was carried out exclusively by armed merchant raiders, and the heavy German ships only tied up the large Allied forces, the latter had to continuously observe them until the Tirpitz was sunk by Royal Air Force aircraft in November 1944.

This is what Royal Navy Captain S.V. writes in the British Official History of the War at Sea. Roskilde about the campaign of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau:

These ships “... completely disrupted our Atlantic convoy schedule for some time, with serious consequences for the import of vital goods. Their raids forced us to widely disperse our already insufficient naval resources... Their campaign was skillfully planned, well coordinated with the movements of other raiders and was successfully supported by their supply ships specially sent for this purpose.”

From these comments it is easy to imagine the damage large ships could cause if they went to sea.

By the time the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were locked in port, there were six merchant raiders at sea, and another had already returned to Germany after a successful campaign.

The first six raiders went to sea between March 31 and July 9, 1940. These are Atlantis, Orion, Widder, Thor, Penguin and Comet. These ships are called “first wave raiders.”

The seventh raider, Kormoran, which sailed on December 3, 1940, became the first ship of the “second wave.” The Cormoran was followed by Stir, Michel, Comet (sunk at the beginning of her second voyage), Thor (second voyage) and finally Togo (which never made it past Boulogne).

In addition, two more raiders were prepared to sail, but the effectiveness of Allied air and sea surveillance was already so high that after Togo failed to escape, the plan was abandoned. These were "Hansa" (formerly British "Glengarry") and "Coburg" (formerly Dutch "Amerskerk").

The history of the operations of German surface raiders during the First World War provided a valuable source of information for Raeder and his officers in the second round of their battle with Britain for naval supremacy. A lot of valuable things can be gleaned from it today. Spee's squadron circled half the world and defeated the British squadron along the way. In addition to the Spee squadron, six ships especially distinguished themselves. The first - both in time and in significance - are "Goeben" and "Breslau", whose campaign in the Dardanelles in 1914 led to Turkey's entry into the war against the Allies. As a result, direct communications between the Allies and Russia were severed, and the Russians were unable to obtain weapons and ammunition while fighting the Germans with fists, sticks and stones. Due to the need to restore communications, a failed military operation was undertaken in the Dardanelles. What followed was another year of hopeless struggle, and then the collapse that led to the Bolshevik Revolution.

The next one should be called “Konigsberg”. A force of about eighty British warships drove him into the upper reaches of a river in German East Africa, forcing the crew to scuttle their vessel. The crew and guns were lowered ashore and continued the campaign together with the German ground forces available there. They later operated in German and British East Africa and Rhodesia, as well as in Portuguese and Belgian possessions. The remnants of the German naval and ground forces under the command of General von Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered only two weeks after the German revolution and the signing of the armistice in Europe.

In the next chapter we will see that Rogge - the most successful German raider captain of World War II - thought a lot about this campaign. If his ship was unable to continue its activities as a raider, he intended to take it to some British possession, land his people there and continue the war on his own for as long as possible.

“Goeben” and “Konigsberg” still teach us a clear lesson today. If one or two large Russian ships come to some strategically important point, where there is already a strong communist movement, and deliver weapons and technical assistance there, this could cause all sorts of consequences - from minor conflicts to a full-scale military campaign. All this could prove extremely unpleasant, if not extremely dangerous, for the Western allies. If such an event occurs, the ships themselves will likely be quickly sunk. Such a loss, however, may be considered justified if it results in the launch of a sufficiently large sabotage operation.

Next, after the departure of the Goeben and Breslau, the German warship Emden, a relatively slow-moving and weakly armed light cruiser, became famous. As soon as he appeared in the Indian Ocean, maritime trade in the region almost ceased. Then, as during World War II, the heaviest losses were almost always associated not with the loss of ships or their capture by a raider, but with delays caused by the cessation of shipping, with the need to organize convoys and provide escorts.

These losses were not only financial. Vital goods did not arrive at Allied ports because ships carrying them could not go to sea. Delays and back-and-forth meant that in some cases six vessels had to be assigned to work that would normally have been accomplished by four vessels. Thus, the two additional ships, at least temporarily, could practically be considered lost, since they could not be used for other purposes. Provide convoys with heavy combat escort to the First world war, especially in its first months, it was just as desperately difficult as in the Second. The main body of the British fleet had to be in constant readiness to respond to a full-scale attack by the German fleet, but the British fleet was almost never able to operate at full strength. At any time, some ships were being refitted or repaired - about one in five, and only if the British did not suffer serious setbacks, which was also possible at any time and did sometimes happen.

At the outbreak of the war, the balance of dreadnought forces between the British and German fleets in their own waters was such that the British could sacrifice little. Sending three battlecruisers to the Mediterranean to monitor the Goeben and one ship to the Pacific to protect Australian troop convoys was serious enough to start the war. And later, four battlecruisers in areas as far apart as the Pacific Ocean, the West Indies and the South Atlantic tried to catch the German raider squadron under the command of Count Spee. German battlecruisers launched raids on British coastal cities, and at that time only other battlecruisers could fight battlecruisers.

After the Goeben took refuge in Turkish waters and other German surface warships outside German coastal waters were sunk or disabled, the Germans, as later in World War II, converted merchant ships into raiders. Two such vessels, the Möwe and the Wolf, clearly demonstrated in three long voyages what ships of this type can achieve.

Another merchant ship that, after conversion, turned into a raider and achieved brilliant success is the sailing ship Seeadler. The vessel was equipped with an auxiliary engine. Under the command of the famous Luckner, it circled half the world, wreaking havoc, and was stopped only by an accidental reef in the South Pacific.

The role of the Goeben is perhaps the most important of the roles that had to be played in the history of single ships in naval wars. It all started on July 28, 1914. The battlecruiser was stationed in the Haifa roadstead, and its Admiral Souchon, commander of the German Mediterranean Division, along with most of the officers, was present at a reception given in their honor by the local German colony. The admiral received a message that spoke of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The first thought that came to Souchon's mind was a possible war. The second is about the turbines of his ship. The turbines were in such a state that the magnificent ship was almost crippled - it could reach a speed of only seventeen knots instead of the estimated twenty-seven.

The Goeben interrupted its voyage and returned to the Austrian naval base of Pola, where engineers and workers sent from Germany in response to Souchon's request were waiting for it. There were days of dead calm that followed the first stunning shock of the murder. These days, the tension that had been building up in Europe for a long time finally broke through, destroying the established international order, which for almost half a century, hoping for the best, making compromises, was repaired and patched up. "Goeben" in those days was preparing for war.

Even before the crisis, Souchon had discussed in great detail the issue of joint operations in the event of war against France or France and Britain with fellow admirals commanding the navies of Austria and Italy - Germany's partners in the Triple Alliance. As a result of these meetings, Souchon concluded that the Italians did not have enough desire to help him, and the Austrians did not have the ability. In case of war, he will have to fend for himself. He considered it his primary duty to prevent the mobilization of the French army, a significant part of which was located in North Africa. The French will need to transport these troops to France as quickly as possible so that they can help stop the German advance on Paris.

Without even finishing the repairs, Souchon left Pola and headed along the Adriatic to the Mediterranean Sea. And on time! Declarations of war have already begun to be heard one after another. At the same time, he took under his command, besides the Goeben, the only German seaworthy vessel in his division - the light cruiser Breslau. This ship was part of an international naval force stationed near the port of Durazzo to provide support to King William Wied of Albania, whom the Great Powers had recently elected to this post without the consent of both Albania's neighbors and the Albanians themselves. With the development of the Sarajevo crisis international forces broke up. The last to leave were the mutually friendly crews of the Breslau and the British light cruiser Gloucester. Two weeks later, men serving on both ships who played water polo together had to fight each other.

On board the German ship were two officers who were destined to rise to the top of their professional careers. One of them was Sub-Lieutenant Dönitz, later Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy and the last Chancellor of the Third Reich, completing a ten-year sentence in the Spandau International Military Prison as a war criminal. The second was Dönitz’s rival in the fight for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy in 1943, Admiral General Karle, then a lieutenant.

International forces left Durazzo almost simultaneously with the new king of Albania, who managed to reign for several days over an area of ​​​​several square miles. However, there was no longer talk of creating a small state in the Balkans - in the hope of preserving an alarming, but still peaceful, state. The continued existence of all Balkan states and most European states was in question.

Souchon entered the Mediterranean Sea and headed west, to where French convoys usually move. On the way, he received a warning: war with Britain was likely. As already mentioned, Britain currently kept three battlecruisers in the Mediterranean: Indomitable, Inflexible and Indefatigable, mainly to deal with the " Goeben." They were a little older, a little slower and much weaker protected than the German cruiser, but then, however, it seemed that together they could defeat Souchon’s flagship.

The French Mediterranean fleet at that time significantly surpassed the British in the number of ships and their gun power, but there were no large fast ships here at all, without whose help it would have been impossible to intercept and sink the Goeben.

Souchon hoped to begin his campaign against the French by bombing Beaune and Philippeville. On the morning of August 4, he approached Bon, carrying a large Russian flag. Breslau went to Philipville.

Both ships had already approached their intended targets when an order was received from Berlin instructing them to go to the Dardanelles. Souchon, however, was determined. First - the bombing.

He raised the German flag and carried out intense bombardment. The French, having learned that the Germans were on the border of the Western Mediterranean, postponed the departure of their transports.

That same morning of August 4, hastily leaving Algerian waters towards the Dardanelles, the Goeben met the Indomitable and the Indefatigable. This happened about twelve hours before Britain declared war on Germany. Both the German admiral and the senior British naval officer, Captain Kennedy, were thinking hard, but their thoughts were far away. Captain Kennedy decided that since the war had not started, it was his duty to salute the German admiral. Souchon believed that one of the ships hurrying towards him was the flagship of the British commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne. Milne was senior in rank to Souchon, so the German should have saluted, but the problem was that after the bombing, the Goeben’s guns were loaded with live shells, and the cruiser simply could not give a polite salute. For a moment, Souchon considered whether to signal the British ships and explain the situation. He dismissed the thought and immediately noticed that none of the cruisers carried the admiral's flag. Kennedy also noticed that the Goeben did not fly Souchon's flag. The phantom problem of exchanging fireworks evaporated, and the two commanders found themselves in a very strange and very dangerous situation.

Kennedy asked for instructions from London and at the same time let the Goeben pass him, as a result finding himself between him and the French transports. He did not know that the French had delayed the departure of the caravan, although orders from London came to him almost constantly. He first received orders to attack the Germans if they attacked French shipping, regardless of whether war between Britain and Germany would officially break out at that point. This order was then canceled. Kennedy was informed that war was about to begin and that he should not lose sight of the Goeben.

The three ships moved east together. The Goeben went first, the British on both sides behind it. The engines of all three ships were not able to produce the calculated power, but the Goeben turned out to be slightly faster, not only on paper, but also in reality. He slowly moved away from the British, and by the time war was declared between Britain and Germany he was already out of sight, near Messina. In neutral Italy, the Goeben intended to load with coal and rendezvous with the Breslau.

Both German ships were loading coal in Messina, while the Italo-German political crisis was heating up, and at the same time an unofficial holiday organized by the city's residents. The Italians circled the ship in small boats and sold everything they could, including flowery stories that the Germans were about to be destroyed, because they knew that a stronger British squadron was waiting for them at the border of Italian territorial waters.

The Germans, in a desperate hurry, in almost tropical heat, loaded coal, sailed and slipped past Milne's squadron, who did not fully understand the order he had received, which ordered him to pass through the Strait of Messina - Italian territorial waters - and pursue the enemy. Shortly afterwards Sir Berkeley Milne was relieved of command. The Germans managed to evade the British battlecruisers, but there was another British force capable, in principle, of intercepting them. It was a squadron of four armored cruisers - each smaller, weaker and slower than the Goeben - accompanied by eight destroyers, under the command of Rear Admiral Trubridge, stationed at the entrance to the Adriatic Sea. Trubridge, knowing the weakness of his ships, did not become close to the Germans, for which he was later court-martialed and acquitted, but transferred to shore. Of course, immediately after the incident it became clear - as it is clear today - that, in view of the enormous damage that the Goeben was capable of causing, Trubridge had to attack. He could hope that, even if the cruiser was defeated, the destroyers might be able to at least damage the German battlecruiser with their torpedoes.

This unsatisfactory incident had consequences that had a direct impact on the war against German raiders on the other side of the world. One of the officers who sent letters of solidarity to Troubridge was Rear Admiral Cradock, who was then in command of the British fleet in the South Atlantic and was hunting for Spee's squadron. At that moment it was believed that from the Far East she was heading across the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic and home. Cradock wrote to Trubridge that from the Admiralty's attitude towards the departure of the Goeben it was clear that if he himself, with his much weaker squadron, met Spee, then it would be his duty to engage him in battle, regardless of whether he had any chance of success.

This is exactly what happened a little later in the battle of the port of Coronel off the coast of Chile.

Meanwhile, the Goeben and Breslau, pursued only by the Gloucester, were leaving towards the Dardanelles. The Gloucester was no larger than the Breslau, and the Goeben's heavy guns forced her to keep her distance. Thanks to this, it was not difficult for the faster German ships to escape from the British at night. After a short combat clash, the Germans reached the Dardanelles and rushed to the Turkish batteries. The ships' guns were aimed at the batteries, and the crews stood at their combat positions. Souchon later said that he intended to enter the straits, even if he had to fight his way out. In fact, there was no need for this, since the German military mission to the Turkish army managed to convince Anwar Pasha to allow the ships to enter peacefully. Everything was kept in the strictest confidence, so that diplomatic circles in Constantinople learned about it by chance. An American tourist, the daughter of the American ambassador, came to the city and said that she saw the battle between Gloucester and Goeben with Breslau.

The German ships were almost immediately sold, at least formally, to the Turkish Navy, but they retained the same German officers and crew. To make the ships more like Turkish ones - and for this it was not enough to raise a red flag with a white crescent - half the crew was ordered to wear fezzes. Unfortunately, the first set of fezzes taken on board from some German merchant ship turned out to be unfashionable and, most importantly, not of Turkish style. Appearing on the heads of sailors, these fezzes caused a big scandal.

Immediately after the arrival of German ships in Constantinople, Turkey began preparing for war with the allies. The ships themselves, their crews and German specialists, who made their way to Constantinople in civilian clothes through neutral Balkan countries, actively participated in it. There was a lot to be done.

The first thing to consider was that the Turkish Navy had just lost two of its largest ships - two of the largest battleships built in Britain in terms of size and power. Part of the funds for their construction was collected by subscription, and thousands of the poorest people in Turkey voluntarily or otherwise contributed their money to this enterprise. When the likelihood of war became apparent, both ships were confiscated and transferred to the British Navy. As already indicated, the numerical advantage of the British battle fleet over the German one did not inspire optimism. In London it was clearly understood that we're talking about not only that these ships can, instead of British control, go under the control of a neutral country. In fact, even then there was a very real danger that Turkey would enter the war against the British.

Accordingly, two large ships were confiscated. "Goeben" and "Breslau" were to replace them as far as possible.

The remaining ships of the Turkish fleet were in deplorable condition. Sultan Abdul Hamid maintained a sizable fleet for many years, which spent all its time at anchorage near Constantinople. The Sultan was afraid that as soon as the fleet disappeared from his sight, he would immediately rebel. Externally, the ships were always kept in order and sparkled with fresh paint, but decades of almost complete inactivity were not in vain for the fleet. The ships were rotten, the officers and sailors lost heart, so the combat readiness of the remnants of the navy that still remained in Turkey by 1914 was very low, despite even several years of work of the British naval mission. The Germans, trying to deal with the situation, appointed their officers as commanders of Turkish ships or as advisers to the most competent Turkish officers. Such measures, coupled with the natural fighting qualities of the Turks - when they were not interfered with by the whims of the Sultan - made the Turkish fleet a real force.

Even before the start of the war, the Germans decided that they needed a strong fleet in the Dardanelles. They were convinced that the presence of the German fleet could help Anwar or even encourage him to join the fate of his country with that of the Central Powers. In early August, Germany, together with the Austrian Foreign Ministry, tried to persuade the Austrian naval command to transfer the best ships of the Austrian fleet from the Adriatic Sea to Marmara, but the Austrian commander-in-chief, Admiral House, refused. From the point of view of the Central Powers, it would probably be better if the Austrian fleet were redeployed - of course, assuming that it could be supplied with ammunition and coal. Bearing in mind how difficult it was to provide all this to the Goeben and Breslau, it is difficult to imagine what could be done for the Austrian fleet. It seems that the Germans were ready to sacrifice the Austrian fleet in exchange for a temporary but very serious advantage.

But even without the Austrians, by the end of October 1914 the Germans were ready to take the next step. Without saying a word to a single Turk—probably with the exception of Anwar—Souchon raised the signal, meaning “Do your best for the future of Turkey,” and took his ships to sea under the Turkish flag. Although Türkiye was still neutral, he began bombing the Russian Black Sea coast. The war between the Allies and Turkey began.

Campaigns followed in the Dardanelles, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine and the Caucasus.

As long as the Goeben and Breslau could be kept in combat order and supplied with coal in a timely manner, they conducted fairly lively military operations against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. After the Russian Revolution they were again able to shift their attention to the western exit from the Sea of ​​Marmara. In January 1918, they raided the Mediterranean Sea and sank two British monitors. On the way back, the Breslau hit a mine and sank, and the Goeben ran aground in the Dardanelles. She became a target for torpedoes from submarines, more than 100 bombs were dropped on her - a huge number at that time - but only two of them hit the target.

In the end, the only surviving Turkish battleship helped remove the Goeben from the sand bank. He approached the Goeben as close as possible, and with the action of his propellers he managed to wash the sand from under the keel of the grounded ship, so that it was afloat.

After this, the Goeben returned to the Black Sea, where for several months it was the complete master. And it is not surprising, because the ships of the Russian fleet surrendered or were sunk, and the strong naval base in Sevastopol was captured by the Germans.

At the end of the war, the Goeben was truly handed over to Turkey and has since served in the Turkish fleet under the name Yavuz. This ship was laid down more than forty-five years ago, and now it can hardly be considered an effective warship, but it was destined to play a huge role in history. Its very existence helps bridge the gap between the first German Navy of Tirpitz and the Kaiser and the beginning of the formation of the third German Navy in 1935.

We have already mentioned the only formation of German warships operating in 1914 outside European waters- East Asian squadron under the command of Spee. It included two armored cruisers - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and three light cruisers - Emden, Nuremberg and Dresden. When world war became imminent, Spee abandoned his base at Qingdao, on the Chinese mainland, and disappeared into the Pacific Ocean among the islands. These islands were to become bases for German and Japanese warships and scenes of fierce battles during World War II, and are now testing grounds for atomic and hydrogen bombs.

At the beginning of the war, Spee sent the Emden to the Indian Ocean on an independent raid, and he and the rest of the ships slowly moved across the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, he bombed the French port of Papeete on the island of Tahiti. In American waters they were joined by another light cruiser, Leipzig, after which they headed south to Cape Horn. For three months, the entire Japanese navy, along with British, Australian and French ships, searched in vain for the squadron. On November 1, near the port of Coronel, Spee met Admiral Cradock, sank his two strongest ships, and drove away two weaker ones without suffering any damage. A month later he planned to attack the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. The squadron arrived exactly twenty-four hours after the arrival of the British battlecruisers Inflexible and Invincible and was as inferior to the British in strength as Cradock's squadron. British cruisers spent the whole day chasing the Germans towards Antarctica, and in the end Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig and Nuremberg were sunk. The Dresden managed to escape, but in March of the following year she became trapped off the Juan Fernandez Islands and was scuttled by her crew.

Dresden remained the last of the regular German surface warships on the ocean. "Emden" gained the greatest fame. Its captain, Müller, was one of those Germans whom British society has reason to respect almost unconditionally. From the history of World War II, the example of Rommel is fresh in the memory, although these cases are not completely analogous. In the military hierarchy, Müller occupied a rather modest position, and in his case, unlike the situation with the field marshal, no political considerations played a role. If British society during the Second World War had known about Rogg, the captain of the Atlantis, they would no doubt have treated him in much the same way as they had treated the captain of the Emden thirty years earlier.

The ship's operations under the command of Muller lasted three months. During this time, the Emden sank or captured ships with a total tonnage of 101,182 GRT and, as already mentioned, practically stopped shipping in the Indian Ocean. In addition to this, Müller carried out two sensational attacks on important seaports. First, on September 22, he launched a bombardment of oil tanks in Madras. Then, a month later, he entered the bay of Penang Island under the British flag and, lowering the flag at the last moment, hit and sank first a Russian light cruiser and then a French destroyer with a torpedo.

All this time, Allied warships were hunting for the German raider. One of them, a Japanese cruiser, Muller even managed to deceive upon meeting. Müller built a false additional funnel on the Emden, raised the British naval ensign and successfully passed off his ship as the British cruiser Hampshire. After this, however, the raider captain made a fatal mistake. He decided to attack the British cable station in the Cocos Islands and cut the cable. Even before his assault force could land on shore, the signal post gave a warning, which was accepted by a mixed British-Australian-Japanese escort escorting an Australian troop convoy passing nearby. This convoy was sent by the Australian ship Sydney to intercept the Emden. It was much more powerful than the Emden, and soon the German raider was driven aground and forced to surrender. Its rusty hull is still visible above the surface of the ocean to this day, forty years later. The assault force from the Emden, in a small and fragile sailing boat, managed to reach Java, where they found and requisitioned a German merchant ship that had taken refuge in the port at the outbreak of the war. On this ship the detachment reached Arabia, and there, having contacted the nearest Turkish troops, they set off on camels across all of Arabia to Constantinople.

Another 1914 raider, whose wreck can still be seen, is located a few miles from the mouth upstream of the Rufiji River in Tanganyika. This is the Koenigsberg, destroyed in its shelter after a short service. He managed to sink the British light cruiser Pegasus and one merchant ship.

It took a considerable force of warships to drive the Koenigsberg up the Rufiji, and nine months to destroy it there. Special shallow-water monitors with 6-inch guns had to be delivered to Africa all the way from the United Kingdom. Two features of these operations are of interest. Firstly, for almost the first time, an airplane was used to adjust the firing of the guns of British ships at the Koenigsberg, hidden in the boundless mangroves. And secondly, a fire ship was sunk in the river channel, which should not have allowed the raider to escape into the sea while preparations were being made for the last phase of the operation.

Finally, in July 1915, the raider lost the ability to operate. His crew, taking with them their still operational guns, left to take part in the East African Campaign.

The surviving crew members of the Königsberg continued to fight. Death, disease and captivity gradually reduced their numbers, but some remained at large when Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered two weeks after the armistice. These people returned to Berlin free, where a triumphant reception awaited them in the troubled days of March 1919. Berliners were recovering from the communist takeover and were moving closer to the fascist takeover day by day.

Another German light cruiser successfully hunted merchant ships for three months until she was accidentally sunk.

It was the Karlsruhe, operating in the West Indies and the Atlantic north of the equator. Two days after the start of the war, the Karlsruhe miraculously managed to elude the British cruisers chasing it. He left only because the main pursuer, the light cruiser Bristol, could not reach full speed at that time.

The Karlsruhe was eventually lost off the island of Trinidad in the British West Indies due to an accidental explosion in the bow gun magazine. The explosion completely turned the bow of the ship, and it sank in a few minutes. There were a lot of casualties, since the explosion occurred in the evening, when a significant part of the crew on the forecastle was listening to the ship's orchestra.

The survivors were picked up and delivered to Germany by one of the “prizes” of “Karlsruhe”, which was located nearby.

In addition to the warships that were overseas at the start of the war, the Germans had several large and fast liners specially equipped for use as raiders. Before the war, it was planned to arm many similar ships, but in reality only one of them was sent to sea. Another one was later used to lay minefields. The rest were blocked in German or neutral ports. This happened because, as in 1939, the German authorities did not believe until the last moment that England would declare war, and then it was too late to do anything. So only the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, the oldest of the large German Atlantic liners, operated, albeit briefly, as a raider. The Berlin was later equipped as a minelayer. In October 1914, the new battleship Odeisches, fresh from the slipway, was blown up by the mines he had installed.

This success, of course, paid off for Germany all the money and effort spent on training the raiders, but neither the British nor the Germans expected that this was how large airliners would be used in wartime.

For about twenty years before the First World War, it was believed that during the next great naval war, large liners would be converted into auxiliary cruisers. German liners will hunt merchant ships, and British liners will protect them. In those years, until about 1905, liners were faster than any warship available, with the exception of small ones such as destroyers or torpedo boats. In the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese used converted liners for reconnaissance purposes - the Russian fleet in Tsushima, for example, was the first to notice an armed liner operating as a cruiser on the flank of Admiral Togo's fleet. However, within ten years by 1914, warships had greatly increased their speed due to the introduction of turbine engines. If, when built, the liners of the Cunard company - Lusitania and Mauretania - were several knots faster than any cruiser capable of sinking them, then by the beginning of the war this was no longer the case. Before the war, they were preparing to install fourteen 6-inch guns on the liners, which in those days corresponded to the armament of a cruiser with a displacement of 10,000 tons. Soon, however, it became clear that much smaller enemy ships could, having intercepted them, turn around their huge unarmored steel sides with their at least relatively light weapons.

In addition, these very large ships required enormous quantities of coal. Not even talking about money, supplying such ships with coal on the high seas was extremely difficult. So within a few weeks of the start of the war, neither side was using their liners as warships. The British converted their liners into transports and hospital ships, the Germans laid up theirs.

On the other hand, smaller merchant ships proved invaluable as warships. The British commissioned many medium and small liners as auxiliary cruisers, and the Germans, as in 1939–1945, took several inconspicuous cargo ships and turned them into commercial raiders.

However, before the Germans finally decided that the large liners were not suitable for conversion into armed merchant raiders, four such ships managed to go into action. This happened from August 1914 to March 1915.

The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, having escaped from German territorial waters, operated for a relatively short time - only about three weeks - off the coast of West Africa and the Canary Islands, after which it was sunk. One of the episodes of his activities deserves attention. On August 15 and 16, near Tenerife, a raider stopped the British liners Arlanza and Galician, both with passengers. After their radio installations were disabled to prevent the ships from raising the alarm, both liners were allowed to continue their journey, as the raider had nowhere to accommodate British passengers and crew. Landing people on the open sea in small boats or operating according to the principle of “sink and leave no trace” was not yet considered possible in those days. Just a few months later, the international laws of war were devalued, the bombing of open seaside cities began, and submarine operations were generally not restrained by any humanitarian considerations. The end to this, at least for a while, was put only by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. However, despite the fact that after the unrestricted submarine war of 1915-1918 the Germans themselves convicted several people of war crimes, the records of the captains and sailors of the surface raiders of the First World War remained as clean as possible for any group of troops during such a time. desperate war.

The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was specially equipped and armed, it left Germany, but the other three liners received their very light weapons directly at sea from German warships. Nevertheless, even such light weapons were enough for the raiders to stop an unarmed Allied merchant ship.

These liners are Cap Trafalgar (18,710 GRT), Kronprinz Wilhelm (14,908 GRT) and Prinz Eitel-Friedrich (8,787 GRT). The Cap Trafalgar was sunk in September 1914 by the British armed merchant cruiser Carmania, and the other two were interned by the Americans in the spring of 1915 when they had to call at Newport News after being on the high seas continuously since the outbreak of the war.

The career of "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" was much shorter. She was sunk near Rio de Oro by the British light cruiser Highflyer on August 28, 1914. In the history of the conversion of the Kronprinz Wilhelm from a liner to a raider, an interesting fact is that this work was done in two hours right at sea by the liner’s own crew and a party of sailors from the Karlsruhe.

In addition to these, two more raiders were interned by the Americans at the very beginning of the Pacific War. These were the former Russian steamer Ryazan, converted by Emden into a German raider called Kormoran, and the sloop Geyer.

Time passed. Raiders at sea since the start of the war were sunk or forced to seek refuge in neutral ports. The question arose about what would be the best way to replace them. This is where the idea arose to use ordinary dry cargo ships for this purpose, slow-moving, but inconspicuous and economical in terms of fuel consumption. This idea was put forward by a certain Theodor Wolf, a reserve lieutenant. It sank soon after, but went down in history as the father of armed trade raiders in both world wars.

The first of these converted bulk carriers was the famous Möwe, a former banana carrier that made two voyages - from December 1915 to March 1916 and from November 1916 to March 1917. Both voyages mostly took place in the South and Central Atlantic, but during its first voyage, the Möwe laid mines off the northern coast of Scotland, which blew up the British battleship King Edward VII.

Wolf's single campaign easily exceeds the duration of Möwe's two campaigns. The Wolf spent 445 days at sea and operated in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans from November 1916 to February 1918.

Two other raiders, Greif and Leopard, were sunk by British patrol ships when breaking through the blockade line. Greif was sunk in February 1916, and her opponent, the British armed merchant cruiser Alcantara, also sank. The Leopard was sunk in February 1917 by the cruiser Achilles and the armed search vessel Dundee.

On November 19, 1941, the German raider Kormoran and the Australian cruiser Sydney, disguised as a merchant ship, met in the Pacific Ocean. The ships entered into battle, and as a result of the damage they both sank. The Germans were much luckier, since most of the crew managed to escape on boats, but none of the 645 Australians survived, some of them died during the battle, others drowned along with the ship. For a long time, the death of the cruiser, which had enormous advantages, remained a mystery, however, marine archaeologists were able to find the answer to this question.

Gun "Linda". Under the trunk you can make out images of a skull and crossbones.

Sydney was one of the light cruisers of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Length - 171.4 meters, displacement - nine thousand tons. Armament: eight 152 mm guns, four 102 mm anti-aircraft guns, machine guns and eight torpedo tubes.
In 1940, Sydney was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where she sank two Italian warships and several merchant ships, and participated in convoy operations and coastal bombing. The cruiser was recalled to the shores of Australia due to the increased activity of German raiders in the Indian Ocean in 1941. Joseph Barnett was appointed commander of the ship.

"Sydney" in Sydney Harbor

The 2015 expedition was organized by Curtin University in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum. The cost of the project exceeded two million dollars. The underwater guided vehicle was able to obtain vivid images of a hole in the area of ​​the Sydney's captain's bridge: a shell that hit there after one of the first salvos of the Cormoran most likely killed most of the officers and paralyzed control of the ship. The Australians' ability to respond to Cormoran fire was significantly reduced.

A remote controlled submersible approaches the wreckage

Due to restrictions imposed on the size of warships by the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans decided to rely (in a future war) on cruisers converted from civilian ships. Steiermark, renamed Cormoran, became the newest and largest of the nine Handelsstörkreuzer raiders (trade disruption cruisers). Displacement - 8876 tons, six single 150 mm guns, anti-aircraft guns and torpedo tubes. The main guns were camouflaged behind false hull plates and cargo hatches that opened when ordered to de-camouflage. The commander of the ship was Theodor Dittmers.

Raider "Cormoran"

On November 19, 1941, at about 16:00 local time, the Cormoran was 280 kilometers off the coast of Western Australia. Seeing the masts of a warship on the horizon, the captain ordered to leave. But Sydney also noticed the raider and moved to intercept.

20mm Cormoran anti-aircraft automatic cannon and camouflage flap

As the Australian cruiser approached, it demanded that the Cormoran identify itself. The Cormoran showed the signal - the name of the merchant ship Straat Malakka - and raised the Dutch flag. “Sydney” asked the question “Where are you going?”, to which the raider replied: “Batavia.” During the exchange of messages, Sydney was on a parallel course on the starboard side of the raider. The main guns were aimed at the Cormoran, and the seaplane was ready for takeoff, prompting Dittmers to order the crew to prepare for combat.

The destroyed bow of the Sydney, on which anemones grew

"Sydney" sent a secret signal, the answer to which only the crew of the real Straat Malakka knew. The raider remained silent. "Sydney" additionally showed with a spotlight: "Demonstrate your secret signal." Dittmers realized that the Kormoran would now be exposed, and ordered to drop its disguise, raise the Kriegsmarine flag instead of the Dutch flag, and open fire from all guns and torpedo tubes.

One of the 150 mm Kormoran guns

Sailors' shoes on the seabed

Both ships most likely opened fire almost simultaneously. The first shots from Sydney's eight guns did not cause much damage to the German ship. The close range (about 1300 meters) allowed the raider team to use anti-aircraft guns and short-range defensive guns, preventing Sydney from using additional weapons. The Germans destroyed the cruiser's bridge with a second salvo and damaged the upper superstructures, including the fire control tower, radio room and foremast. By the eighth or ninth salvo, the Cormoran's torpedo punched a hole in the side of the Sydney, and the cruiser began to fall on its bow.

The torn off nose of the Sydney

The first part of the battle was over: "Sydney" went south with a slowdown, "Cormoran" did not change either course or speed. The Sydney's main armament was completely disabled (the front turrets were damaged or destroyed, the rear turrets were jammed on the port side). The cruiser was enveloped in smoke from fires in the engine room and forward superstructures, as well as around the aircraft catapult. Sydney's torpedoes missed their target. But the Kormoran vehicles failed due to battle damage. Having stopped, the Kormoran continued intense fire. By the end of the 30-minute battle, both ships were heavily damaged. They were about ten kilometers from each other.

Sydney torpedo tube with unused torpedoes

Anemones on the wreckage of the Cormoran

For four hours, the Sydney remained buoyant, but then its bow broke off and stood almost vertical under the weight of anchors and chains. The ship quickly sank. No one survived.

Life raft of the Carli system (from "Sydney")

"Cormoran" could not move after the battle. Dittmers ordered to abandon the ship: the fire-fighting system was out of order, and the fire in the oil tank was approaching the mine cellar. The Germans were housed in five boats and two rafts. Late at night, the mine cellar exploded and the Cormoran sank.

The anchor of the Cormoran lies on the hull of the ship

The raider's crew was clearly proud of their achievements. The list of military victories begins with the Greek cargo ship Antonis (sunk on January 6, 1941) and ends with another Greek ship, Stamatios G. Embirikos (sunk on September 26, 1941).

List of 11 ships captured or sunk by the Cormoran

In the twentieth of November, British and Australian ships picked up all the German boats (out of 399 people from the Kormoran crew, 318 survived). The search for "Sydney" was unsuccessful. No survivors were found. Only on November 27, the ship "Virallah" discovered an inflatable lifebuoy from the cruiser. Later, in 1942, two more life rafts of the Carli system were found.

Lifeboat and longboat "Sydney"

The death of the Sydney and its entire crew dealt a severe blow to the morale of the Australians - it was the largest loss of the Australian fleet in history, amounting to 35 percent of the total losses of Australian fleet personnel during the Second World War.

Sydney crew

Due to the size of the area where the battle between the Sydney and the Cormoran could have taken place, searches were unsuccessful for a long time. It was not until March 2008 that American wreck hunter David Mearn discovered the German ship. Soon they found “Sydney” - 21.1 kilometers from “Cormoran”. On 14 March 2011, the ships were inscribed on the Australian National Heritage List.

Kormoran gun

The investigation confirmed the testimony of Captain Dittmers and refuted conspiracy theories of events (for example, about the secret assistance of a Japanese submarine to the Germans). The powerful Australian cruiser died primarily because Captain Barnett came too close to the raider and lost the advantage of long-range artillery. The Kormoran's shells easily penetrated the Sydney's armor.

Sydney's stern

Some historians accuse Barnet of recklessness: he did not suspect a trick, did not fly a seaplane for reconnaissance and did not make inquiries on the air about someone else’s ship.

Part of the Sydney captain's cabin

Others believe Barnett was confused by conflicting instructions from his superiors. Raiders were supposed to be shot at from a distance, and merchant ships captured by the enemy were required to be boarded and then replenished with them to the Allied fleet. Apparently, Barnet tried to capture the Cormoran, mistaking it for a “prize” (merchant ship).

Sydney's remaining undamaged guns

An auxiliary cruiser is a high-speed commercial ship or passenger liner, equipped with weapons and used during military operations at sea as a patrol, patrol, inspection or convoy vessel (in the British Navy), or as a raider in (the German Navy and the Japanese Navy). Auxiliary cruisers were widely used in the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War and in the initial period (until 1942) of the Second World War. Their advantages included speed, good seaworthiness, especially compared to ships of smaller displacement, and the ability to install fairly powerful weapons - for example, 6" guns. However, due to the fact that auxiliary cruisers were vulnerable to underwater and air attacks, and also, in most cases, they could not withstand specially built ships, and their use was abandoned.

Introduction

The main task of cruising ships has always been considered to be the fight against enemy merchant shipping, so the “real” cruisers quite quickly lost contact with the former champions of the seas, but a lot of new problems appeared. The cruisers were faced with so many new tasks that the former and main task of the frigates turned out to be relegated to the third or even fifth plan. Therefore, almost all fleets that set themselves serious tasks are beginning to acquire auxiliary cruisers in order to plug the resulting holes. Some ships appeared during the Spanish-American War. For the first time, auxiliary cruisers appeared in large numbers during the Russo-Japanese War, both in the Russian and Japanese fleets. But it was only during the First World War that they declared themselves seriously. And already during the Second World War they were used to their full extent in the naval theater of operations.

Auxiliary cruisers until the end of the 19th century.

American Raiders

The first documentary mention of the actions of auxiliary cruisers dates back to civil war in the USA 1861–1865 At that time, Southern auxiliary cruisers such as the Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah and others sank about 5% of the North's entire merchant fleet. Thus showing that using such ships, even a state that did not have a sufficiently powerful fleet at that time could establish local dominance at sea. This has become attractive to many states because... It was very important that these ships were not of specialized construction, but were converted from merchant ships. The main conclusion from the use of auxiliary cruisers (raiders) is that the Confederates received benefits from their activities that were much higher than the funds spent.

Spanish auxiliary cruisers

A subsequent surge of interest in auxiliary cruisers (commercial raiders) occurred during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Spain, which did not have a powerful fleet at that time, purchased several passenger ships from Germany and one from Great Britain. These vessels were converted into auxiliary cruisers Patriot, Rapido, Meteoro and Giralda. Also, the fleet included several more ships of this class: Alfonso XII, Leon XIII, etc. All these warships were supposed to be used for the following purposes:

1. Raids on the Atlantic coast of the United States;
2. Displaying the flag on trade routes with the aim of creating panic and thereby diverting part of the American fleet to protect communications.

But these plans were not destined to come true. "Patriot", "Rapido" and "Buenos Aires" became part of Admiral Camara's squadron and headed to the Pacific Ocean. The rest took part in the fighting as army transports. Two ships were lost - Alfonso XII and Antonio Lopez. After the end of the war, all remaining ships returned to civilian service.

Experience taken into account

The experience of using auxiliary cruisers by Spain and America did not go unnoticed by naval experts in many countries. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The North German Confederation had planned to use merchant ships with volunteer crews, but due to fierce diplomatic protests from France and Great Britain, these plans remained unrealized.

In 1877, the British Admiralty entered into an agreement with the White Star Line shipping company to provide subsidies for the construction of new ships. In return, the company pledged to take into account the recommendations of the Navy when developing designs for these ships, including planning the installation of weapons. Similar subsidy agreements have also been concluded in Germany, France, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Japan.

Auxiliary cruisers of Russia

After analyzing the experience of using auxiliary cruisers in the Spanish-American War, the Russian Admiralty decided to purchase and rebuild several commercial ships into auxiliary cruisers, initially only to suppress military smuggling.

The initiative to arm merchant ships and transform them into light cruisers was put forward at the very beginning of the Russian-Tkretsk War of 1877-1878, at that time by Lieutenant S.O. Makarov. Then four ships were re-equipped, which managed to achieve significant success in combat operations on the Black Sea.

Later in 1878, an all-Russian fundraising began for the creation of the Voluntary Fleet.

At this time, a serious threat of a repeat of the Crimean War loomed over Russia. In order for the country to have something to respond to its opponents in the maritime arena, the country's public proposed the creation of a Voluntary Fleet. All ships of the fleet, in the event of the outbreak of war, were supposed to operate as cruisers in the vast expanses of the world's oceans.

On April 22, 1878, an appeal was published by the Moscow Imperial Society to promote Russian merchant shipping. Which said: “Our enemy is strong at sea. Both in number and in the vastness of its means, its naval forces far surpass ours. But there is an opportunity to deal him a sensitive blow.<…>He has a huge merchant fleet.<…>The last war covered Russian sailors with glory. Give them real sea vessels and send them into the oceans to catch the enemy merchant fleet, and our enemy will repent of his arrogance.”

To create such courts, the Society proposed organizing a nationwide fundraiser. The fundraising company showed the people's readiness to prove to the whole world that Russian empire is a great maritime power. The country had never seen such a patriotic upsurge and the creation of the fleet acquired national significance.

To receive, store and spend donations for the purchase of ships, the Committee for the Organization of the Voluntary Fleet was created. Very short term About 4 million rubles were collected. Even now, this process surprises with its openness. Reports on the number of donations were regularly published in the press, and they were counted to the nearest penny. Later, all acquired ships were united into the Voluntary Fleet.

Auxiliary cruisers during the Russo-Japanese War

Auxiliary cruisers of the Russian Imperial Navy

They started talking about auxiliary cruisers again a few years later with the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The leadership of the Russian fleet has always paid a lot of attention to issues of ocean cruising operations. In February 1904, at a special meeting at the Ministry of the Navy, a decision was made to begin active cruising operations with the aim of destroying or disrupting Japanese fisheries, intercepting smuggled cargo and diverting part of the Japanese fleet from the main theater of military operations at Port Arthur. But from the Voluntary Fleet, only the steamships “Petersburg” and “Smolensk” were suitable for these purposes, and therefore several high-speed vessels were purchased abroad, which entered service under the names “Don”, “Ural”, “Terek” and “Kuban” . Initially, the Petersburg and Smolensk operated in the Red Sea, detaining several British and German ships carrying smuggled cargo for Japan. However, the fact that these cruisers first passed through the Bosporus and Dardanelles under the guise of merchant ships, and only then were officially enrolled in the Russian Navy, almost led to a rupture in diplomatic relations between Russia and Britain. Therefore, the arrested ships had to be released. The operations of the auxiliary cruisers "Don", "Ural" and "Terek" off the northwestern coast of Africa and the Strait of Gibraltar did not bring any positive results, as well as the cruiser Lena in the Pacific Ocean. It should be noted that the actions of these ships were greatly complicated by numerous restrictions and prohibitions, as well as the extreme indecisiveness of the Russian leadership. Then five auxiliary cruisers “Dnepr” (formerly “Petersburg”), “Rion” (formerly “Smolensk”), “Kuban”, “Terek” and “Ural” became part of the Second Pacific Squadron. During the transition to the Pacific Ocean, they were actively involved in guard duty and close-in reconnaissance. Upon arrival at the theater of operations, the first four separated from the squadron and left to conduct cruising operations on enemy trade communications, achieving minimal results. “Ural” remained with the squadron and shared its fate, dying during the Battle of Tsushima.

Japanese auxiliary cruisers

The Japanese fleet also had about two dozen auxiliary cruisers, which were engaged in patrol and patrol services, and also served as scouts for the squadron. At the same time, they managed to capture several Russian merchant ships. The most famous was the Shinano-Maru, which was the first Japanese ship to make contact with the Second Pacific Squadron before the Battle of Tsushima.

Decision of the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907

The issue of the status of auxiliary cruisers was finally resolved at the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907. One of the articles adopted by the convention was specifically devoted to the conversion of merchant ships to auxiliary cruisers. It stated the following: the converted ship must carry the appropriate pennant and stern naval ensign; it must belong to the belligerent power whose flag it bears; its commander must be appointed by the state and his name must appear in the relevant lists of naval officers; his command must be subject to military discipline; he must observe the laws and customs of war; its name must be included in the list of Navy ships.

Auxiliary cruisers in the First World War

Auxiliary cruisers of Germany

The greatest attention was paid to auxiliary cruisers in the Kaiser's Germany, which, while participating in the “battleship race” with Great Britain, did not forget about the cruising war. Back in the 80s of the 19th century, its government entered into a subsidy agreement with the two largest shipping companies - the Bremen-based NDL (“Norddeutscher Lloyd”) and the Hamburg-based HAPAG (“Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfarth Aktien-Gesellschaft”). Both companies agreed to allow the military to make changes to the projects as long as they did not affect the commercial component.

In 1888-90, four mail and passenger liners Augusta Victoria, Columbia, Normannia and Fürst Bismarck were launched for HAPAG, which had special reinforcements for gun installation sites and other paramilitary preparations. February 22, 1893 in mobilization orders for the naval station North Sea For the first time, instructions appear for the Normannia to be accepted into service as an “auxiliary messenger ship or auxiliary cruiser.” At the same time, standard armament was ordered in advance for all liners (including NDL’s Spree and Havel), consisting of 8 150 mm, 4 120 mm, 2 88 mm, 6 37 mm guns and 14 machine guns. That same year, Admiral Headquarters began planning commercial raider operations.

In 1895, the government entered into a new agreement with the shipping companies. Now subsidies were issued for the construction of ships only at domestic shipyards. In addition, the companies pledged to open regular communications with the Far East and Australia. In turn, the state took upon itself the responsibility to build equipped harbors, coal depots and, later, radio stations. In October of the same year, large maneuvers of the German fleet took place, in which the Normannia took part, converted in 15 days at the shipyard in Wilhelmshaven into an auxiliary cruiser. In addition to the standard weapons, there were two 22-ton destroyers on board, each armed with one 450-mm torpedo tube.

In 1909, an imperial decree adopted the “Prize Ordinance” - rules for waging war against trade at sea, and in 1913 new official requirements appeared for ships planned to be commercial raiders.

Despite all the carefully worked out plans, only seven German auxiliary cruisers entered the fleet in 1914. These were the six passenger ships Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (14,349 grt, NDL), Victoria Luise (16,703 grt, HAPAG), "Prince Eitel Friedrich" (8797 GRT, NDL), "Kronprinz Wilhelm" (15908 GRT, NDL), "Cap Trafalgar" (18710 GRT, HSDG - shipping company "Hamburg-Sudamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft" from Hamburg.) and "Berlin" "(17324 GRT, NDL). The seventh was the Kormoran, a former Russian steamship of the Dobroflot Ryazan (3433 GRT), captured at the very beginning of the war by the German light cruiser Emden in the Far East. Having achieved certain successes, among which it is worth noting the death of the British battleship Odesches on mines laid by the Berlin in the Irish Sea, these ships very quickly ended their career as raiders. Victoria Louise was withdrawn from the fleet just five days after being listed. On August 26, 1914, the British armored cruiser Highflyer sank the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse off the coast of Spain, and Cap Trafalgar was lost on September 14 in a battle with the British auxiliary cruiser Carmania in the South Atlantic. The rest were interned - "Berlin" on November 18 in Trondheim, "Cormoran" on December 13 on the island of Guam, and "Prinz Eitel Friedrich" (April 8, 1915) and "Kronprinz Wilhelm" (April 26, 1915) in New York. . As a result, by April 1915, when not a single German commercial raider remained in the world's oceans, the first stage of the struggle on trade communications ended.

Thirty-year-old reserve lieutenant Theodor Wolf, who served on the destroyer V-162, provided the commander of the German fleet, Admiral Hugo von Pohl, with a memorandum on commercial raiders. He proposed using ordinary merchant ships, which plied the waters of the world's oceans in large numbers, as them. In his opinion, their low speed was more than compensated for by many advantages, such as low fuel consumption, large payload capacity, which ensured greater navigation autonomy, and inconspicuousness.

Wolf's conclusions were also confirmed by the results of the voyage (May - June 1915) of the auxiliary cruiser "Meteor" (1912 GRT), rebuilt from the English cargo steamer "Vienne" captured in Hamburg at the beginning of the war. Von Pohl approved Wolf's plan, after which the papers were transferred to Admiral Headquarters, where they were immediately archived. But at this time, the fleet command decided to resume laying secret minefields, practiced in the initial period of the war, and at the same time test the lieutenant’s idea. The memorandum was requested back to the fleet headquarters and on September 21, 1915, after several days of careful study, the corvetten - Captain Count Nikolauszu Dona - Schlodin received an order to convert the merchant ship into a commercial raider, capable of also performing the functions of a minelayer.

Dona-Schlodin chose to carry out his task the new (1914) 4778-ton banana carrier “Pungo” of the F. Laisch company, which he renamed “Möwe”. Its armament consisted of four 150-mm and one 105-mm guns, two 500-mm torpedo tubes, and 500 mines. The cruiser’s initial task was to lay minefields, and only after this was completed the captain could, at his discretion, engage in raider operations. The Möwe left Kiel on December 15, 1915, masquerading as a Swedish steamer. When he returned to Germany on March 4, 1916, Dona Schlodin could report the sinking of the British battleship King Edward VII (killed by mines laid off the northern coast of Scotland), 13 steam and 1 sailing cargo ships (as well as the capture of one steamer as a prize), with a total tonnage of 159,400 tons. A brilliant confirmation of Wolf's idea! On November 22, 1916, the Möwe, under the command of the already frigate - captain Don Schlodin, holder of the Iron Cross first class and the Order of the Purle Merit, set out on her second voyage, which ended on March 22, 1917. This time 27 ships with a total capacity of 121,707 went to the bottom T.

However, all these figures pale in comparison to the results of the second “Wolf” - perhaps the most famous commercial raider in Germany during the First World War. The former steamship "Wachtfels" of the Bremen company "Hansa", included in the German fleet in 1916, received strong armament consisting of seven 150-mm guns, four torpedo tubes and 465 mines. The raider also had a seaplane "Friedrichshafen" FF-33e for reconnaissance flights, which later received the name "Wolfchen" ("Little Wolf"). The supply of ammunition and food was enough for fifteen months of the campaign. The ship was converted in such a way that it could change its silhouette with the help of additional matches and pipes.

On November 30, 1916, the raider under the command of Corvetten-Captain Karl-August Nerger set out from Kiel on his unprecedented voyage. A gray shadow, “Wolf” passed through the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, sending enemy ships to the bottom. In addition, mines were laid off the Cape of Good Hope, Bombay, Colombo, Aden, Singapore, the coast of New Zealand and Australia. The Wolfchen, which was a very successful and unpretentious aircraft, provided all possible assistance, conducting aerial reconnaissance and attacking enemy ships with bombs. On February 24, 1918, seven days after the Admiral Headquarters sent out notifications to the families of the cruiser’s crew that it had disappeared at sea, the most successful raider of all times entered Kiel harbor, accompanied by the Little Wolf flying above him. The results achieved by Nerger are truly admirable. The Wolf spent 452 days at sea, covering about 64,000 miles during that time. The raider captured and sank 14 ships during this time, and 13 more became victims of his mines. Five more received heavy damage from explosions. Thus, the total tonnage of victims was about 214,000 tons. The actions of Nerger and his team became a model for raider operations, and the results were never surpassed during either the First or Second World Wars. The successes achieved by other German auxiliary cruisers (Greif, Geyer and others) turned out to be much more modest, except that the unique voyage of the sailing raider Seeadler under the command of Corvetten-Captain Count Felix von Luckner, which seemed to have stepped out of the pages of books, stands apart Captain Marietta and Rafael Sabatini.

British auxiliary cruisers

Germany's main enemy in the First World War, Great Britain, also had auxiliary cruisers in its fleet, mobilizing for this purpose a large number of liners (about sixty). They were mainly engaged in guarding and patrolling trade routes, as well as performing patrol duty. With the outbreak of World War I, several dozen former airliners were called up for active military service. Even work began on the record-breaking Cunard, but none of them received guns, although the violent First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill really wanted this. However, they approached the armament of the former airliners “carelessly.” Although one can understand them - they did not at all intend to use their auxiliary cruisers in battle; they were entrusted with the task of naval blockade of Germany. A significant part of the British auxiliary cruisers was transferred to the 10th squadron, which blocked the approaches to the North Sea. This probably explains the weakness of the armament of British ships - old 120 mm and 152 mm guns. But these ships had good seaworthiness, and the living conditions of the crew could be called almost luxurious compared to real cruisers, which was very important during a long stay at sea.

In general, the liners' achievements as raiders were more than modest, but the British, who used them more as patrol vessels, were quite satisfied.

Auxiliary cruiser battles

The first battle between auxiliary cruisers took place at the beginning of the First World War. The passenger liner Carmania, requisitioned by the British Admiralty, was cruising off the coast of Brazil in search of German supply ships. On September 14, 1914, the Carmania approached the Brazilian Trinity Island. Captain Noel Grant discovered that in one of the bays of the island a large two-pipe passenger liner was loading coal from two coal miners. Although it was painted in the colors of the British shipping company Union Castle, it turned out to be the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar, which decided to take the fight.

By 12.10, the distance between the ships had decreased to 40 cables, which gave the Carmania gunners the opportunity to begin shooting, and Cap Trafalgar responded in kind.

The Carmania received 79 hits, and the bridge was destroyed by enemy fire. 9 crew members were killed, 27 were wounded. The speed of "Carmania" dropped to 16 knots and "Cap Trafalgar" by 13.30 came out from under fire with an advantage in progress. However, her damage was also extensive - at least five holes below the waterline, multiple fires in the bow and stern, as well as a strong list to starboard. The captain of the Cap Trafalgar tried to throw the ship onto the sandbank, but the liner began to fall on its side, lay on its side and sank to the bottom, nose first. According to some reports, it was blown up to speed up the flooding.

On March 11, 1917, a battle took place between the German auxiliary cruiser Mewe and the New Zealand auxiliary cruiser Otaki, which was armed with a 120-mm gun. The battle began at a distance of 1.5 miles. Soon the Otaki artillerymen hit the raider. The shell exploded under the bridge above the engine room. The explosion killed 5 people and injured 10 more. The second shell started a fire in a coal bunker. The third exploded next to the side of the cruiser, and the Meve began to take in water through fragmentation holes. But when the cruiser's 150-mm guns fired, the Otaki began to receive one hit after another.

When the distance was reduced to a mile, the German gunners counted 30 hits on the British ship. Finally, the blazing Otaki began to list to starboard, then capsized and sank. The Germans lifted almost the entire crew from the water, but 6 people still died, including the brave skipper Bisset-Smith. He remained on the sinking ship after making sure that the boats with the wounded had sailed safely. Count zu Dona-Schlodien in his report paid tribute to the enemy, calling this battle an example of courage.

Auxiliary cruisers in World War II

Missions of auxiliary cruisers

During the war, German auxiliary cruisers performed the following tasks:

• disruption of enemy shipping by conducting combat operations, as well as creating the threat of attack;
• destruction or capture of enemy merchant ships;
• creating tension in the enemy's combat forces, forcing him to escort merchant ships throughout the world's oceans and patrol at communications centers, thereby diverting much-needed combat units in the most important theaters of military operations.

At the same time, British auxiliary cruisers carried out the following tasks:

• blocking enemy ships in ports of deployment;
• protection of merchant shipping in remote theaters of military operations;
• escorting merchant ships on busy routes.

Royal Navy

Objectives, composition and actions

Great Britain used auxiliary cruisers to protect its communications when there were not enough specially built escort ships. All of them were rebuilt passenger (or cargo-passenger) ships. The Admiralty hoped that their high speed would allow them to successfully intercept enemy raiders. One of the first tasks in 1939 was to patrol the Faroe Passage, where little German opposition was expected.

One of the most famous auxiliary cruisers was the British Jervis Bay. As part of convoy HX-84 in May 1940, he entered into battle with the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer and died in an unequal battle. But, thanks to the self-sacrifice of Jervis Bay, the HX-84 ships managed to disperse, and Admiral Scheer managed to intercept only 5 ships out of 37.

A similar episode occurred on November 23, 1939 between the auxiliary cruiser Rawalpindi and the battlecruiser Gneisenau.

The passenger liner Pretoria Castle was purchased by the British Admiralty and, after refitting, entered service as the auxiliary cruiser HMS Pretoria Castle. However, it was later rebuilt as an escort aircraft carrier.

Action Evaluation

In general, the results of the British auxiliary cruisers were considered unsatisfactory. Their use was justified only as a temporary, forced measure. Despite the high training and heroism of the crews, they turned out to be too vulnerable and suffered losses disproportionate to the results. Some authors characterize their service in 1939−1940 as a “beating.”

Japanese Imperial Navy

Japan, unlike Great Britain and Germany, did not have a focused program to disrupt or protect communications, and had no strong views on the use of auxiliary cruisers. The following auxiliary cruisers were included in the Imperial Japanese Navy:

• "Hokoku Maru"
• "Aikoku Maru"
• "Kiyoshima Maru"
• "Kongo Maru"
• "Kinryu Maru"
• "Akagi Maru"
• "Asaka Maru"
• "Awata Maru"
• "Noshiro Maru"
• "Saigon Maru"
• "Kinjosan Maru"
• "Bangkok Maru"

Their actions were sporadic. One of the episodes took place on November 11, 1942. On this day, in the Indian Ocean, the Japanese auxiliary cruisers Hokoku Maru and Aikoku Maru (each 10,400 tons, 8 140 mm guns, 4 25 mm guns, 4 12.7 mm machine guns and 2 533-mm torpedo tubes, a seaplane) attacked a convoy consisting of: the minesweeper of the Royal Indian Navy "Bengal", weapons - a 12-pound gun, three 20-mm guns, the Dutch tanker "Ondina" of the Royal Dutch Shell company, which had one gun caliber 45 mm. However, despite the colossal superiority of the enemy, "Bengal" and "Ondina" were able not only to fight back, but also to sink the "Hokoku Maru" (it is believed that the cause of the ship's death was the explosion of a tank with aviation gasoline after being hit by a shell from the "Ondina") and drive away " Aikoku Maru."

German Navy (Kriegsmarine)

Plans before the start of the war

After the end of the First World War, the German fleet became almost symbolic. At the same time, it was forbidden to have not only submarines, but also commercial raiders. However, already in 1920, the Reichswehr Naval Administration was created under the leadership of Admiral Paul Behnke, and work began to restore Germany’s naval power, analyzed fighting During the World War, a new naval doctrine is being developed. Thus, in 1923, Rear Admiral Erich Raeder’s two-volume book “Cruising War in Foreign Waters” was published, dedicated to the raider operations of the German fleet during the First World War. In it, Raeder concludes that it is necessary to disrupt the enemy’s vital sea communications by waging a cruising war. The same issue is considered in their works by prominent theorists of the German fleet of that time O. Groos, W. Wegener, W. Gladish. Under the next commander of the fleet, Admiral Hans Zenker, in 1927, planning began for future operations directed against the merchant shipping of Britain and France, battleships of the Deutschland type were designed, one look at performance characteristics which are enough to understand their purpose for raider operations. In 1928, Admiral Raeder became the head of the fleet, under whom the cruising doctrine of warfare at sea acquired an even more offensive character. The system of “stages” that had worked so well during the First World War began to unfold again. Already in 1930, money began to be secretly allocated to finance it. The main centers of "Etappen-Dienst" were located in Spain, South America, USA and Far East.

Commercial raiders were not forgotten either: they were expected to be widely used in the event of the outbreak of hostilities. In 1934, the Kriegsmarine command determined the procedure for the construction of auxiliary cruisers, conventionally called “transport ships “O”. Lists of domestic and foreign merchant ships of the latest construction, suitable for this purpose, began to be compiled three years earlier. In the same year, money was secretly allocated for the construction of four such raiders. Due to tensions with the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, they were never built, but auxiliary cruisers continued to figure in German operational plans for warfare at sea.

Moreover, a paradoxical situation developed: in the event of the outbreak of war, Germany had too few ships to influence the maritime trade of the allies, and they, in turn, had practically no ships to protect their trade communications. The command of the German fleet, wanting to increase the list of ships intended for conversion, agreed with shipbuilding firms that when building new cargo ships, which, according to their parameters, would be potential candidates for auxiliary cruisers, they would strengthen the hulls in advance in the places where the main caliber guns were supposed to be installed. In 1938, the Kriegsmarine, even before the start of the war, planned to convert five of these merchant ships into raiders. At the same time, some candidates for commanders and officers were selected for future assignment to auxiliary cruisers. True, not all senior naval ranks believed that commercial raiders would be able to repeat the successes of the last war. This circumstance, as well as the desire to avoid suspicion from the enemy, and some other political motives, led to the fact that nothing was done, although it was planned to commission 26 ships from among the fastest merchant ships. As a result, when the first salvos of the war were fired on September 1, 1939, there was not a single auxiliary cruiser in the German fleet.

During the war

However, the “Management of the War at Sea” (RWM) reacted instantly, and already in early September selected six transports that were to become raiders - “Goldenfels”, “Kurmark”, “Neumark”, “Santa Cruz”, “Kandelfels” and “ Iller", but then the latter was replaced by the same type "Ems". In World War II naval history they became known as Atlantis, Orion, Widder, Thor, Penguin and Comet. These auxiliary cruisers, which set sail from March 31 to July 9, 1940, were called the “first wave” in military historical literature.

They were followed by Steiermark, Bonn, Cairo, Togo, which became Cormoran, Michel, Stir and Coronel. Together with the “Komet” and “Thor” that went out on the second campaign, they formed the “second wave” of German raiders, which stretched in time from December 3, 1940 (“Cormoran”) to February 1943 (“Coronel”). "Schiff 5" (formerly "Glengarry", then "Meersburg") was refitted, but never went on a campaign, later becoming the training ship "Hansa". In addition, it was planned to turn into auxiliary cruisers “Neidenfels”, “Moltkefels”, “Amerskerk” (Schiff-49), “Minden” (formerly “Lodz”), “Coburg” and “Marburg” (the last two were newly built) . However, then the Kriegsmarine command abandoned these plans. In total, by November 27, 1939, RVM entered into contracts with shipyards to begin work on twelve ships, with the condition that the first of them set sail that same winter - 60 days were given for re-equipment. The second group was planned to consist exclusively of motor ships capable of long-term operations, with a 12-knot cruising range of at least 40,000 miles. These ships were supposed to go to sea in the first half of 1940.

But all these plans turned out to be fantastic. Constant delays in work at the shipyards and the very harsh winter of 1939–1940 immediately dampened such optimistic sentiments. As a result, the first raiders set off on their campaign more than three months late. In fact, the entire program was constantly changing and even suspended due to the planning and execution of Operations Weserubung (the invasion of Norway and Denmark) and Seelowe (the intended landings in the British Isles), until the ever-increasing Allied superiority at sea and air put an end to plans for conducting a raider war.

As mentioned earlier, according to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not allowed to have auxiliary cruisers. To avoid this word, the expression "Handels-Schutz-Kreuzer" - "trade protection cruiser", abbreviated as HSK - was initially used. It was then interpreted as "Handels-Stoer-Kreuzer" - "trade interruption cruiser". German historian Erich Groener argues that there is still no convincing indisputable evidence how and when the HSK designation was officially established. War logs (KTV - Kriegstagebuch) and reports based on them use this group of letters in combination with Arabic numerals from 1 to 8 (originally Latin numbers were used). They distinguished (without a clearly established definition) heavy (over 7000 GRT), light (up to 5000 GRT), as well as minelayers. On September 26, 1939, the commands of the naval groups “Nord” and “Ost” issued orders to replace the term “Schwere Hilfskreuzers” (“heavy auxiliary cruiser”) with “Handelsschiffkreuzer” (“merchant cruiser”). However, in reality this designation was never used.

By November 27, 1939, RVM had entered into contracts with shipyards to begin work on twelve ships. In total, 60 days were allotted for the work so that the first raiders could go to sea that same winter. However, difficulties that arose with the re-equipment and completion of ships, with the workload of shipyards with other, more important and urgent orders, led to the fact that deadlines began to be violated at the very beginning. Soon, work on some ships was stopped altogether. As a result, by the end of the year, only three raiders entered service - Widder, Orion and Atlantis. The extremely harsh winter of 1939/1940 for the Baltic, in turn, completely disrupted tests and training sessions. As a result, only on April 1, 1940 did the first German auxiliary cruiser go to sea since Great War- "Atlantis". Five days later it was followed by Orion, and a month later by Widder. Then there was a break caused by the occupation of Norway and Denmark, after which three more raiders went on a campaign in the summer: “Thor”, “Penguin” and “Komet”, which entered service already in 1940. As a result, Germany was able, without taking into account battleships and heavy cruisers, to oppose the maritime trade of Britain and its allies with only these six “first wave” raiders.

After the Comet set out on a cruise, there was an almost six-month break, until in December 1940 the next auxiliary cruiser, Kormoran, went to sea. He became the last raider to break into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait. The Allies were able to establish an effective blockade of the North Sea and all subsequent German cruisers had to make their way to the French ports across the English Channel with strong security, clinging to the shore and experiencing serious opposition from the enemy fleet and aircraft. By this time, Germany itself no longer particularly believed in the greater effectiveness of the influence of commercial raiders on the enemy’s trade communications, so the program for restructuring merchant ships was constantly curtailed until in the summer of 1943 it was finally abandoned. Thus, the “second wave” of auxiliary cruisers included: the already mentioned “Cormoran”, “Thor” and “Komet”, which went on their second cruise, and the new “Mikhel”, “Stir” and “Coronel”. Of these ships, only the Cormoran, Thor and Michel were able to achieve certain successes. The Stir soon died in a battle with a much weaker American transport, the “lucky” Komet was sunk by English ships back in the English Channel, and the Coronel was never able to break into operational space. Another ship, Schiff 5, was in the process of being refitted when the decision was made not to send new ships to sail.

Action Evaluation

So, on October 17, 1943 - with the death of "Michel" - the raider operations of the Kriegsmarine, which lasted three and a half years, ended. The leadership of the war at sea, playing the game on the huge chessboard of the world's oceans with the help of raiders, supply ships and blockade runners, lost the game to the British Admiralty. However, until the very end of the war, RVM did not stop studying the results of the activities of commercial raiders. Staff officers analyzed combat logs and other documents, preparing on their basis secret orders, circulars and reports concerning the description and analysis of the actions of cruisers. This work remained unfinished.

“The days of using German surface ships for warfare on the oceans are gone forever,” wrote former naval commander Admiral Wilhelm Marshall. “With the unprecedented increase in aviation activity of the Western Allies and their regular aerial reconnaissance of the Atlantic expanses using aircraft carriers and new radar equipment, any appearance of German ships could only lead to their rapid destruction without any hope of success.”

He was echoed by another German admiral, Friedrich Ruge: “The end has come to one of the methods of warfare at sea, which could hardly be successful in the era of the airplane and radar. As a result, including the losses incurred from the mines laid, the actions of the auxiliary cruisers cost the enemy 950 thousand gross tons of sunk tonnage, and this is almost equal to the annual production of British shipyards.”

Although the actual numbers confirmed by the opposing side are somewhat lower, it can be said that in the fight against enemy merchant shipping, auxiliary cruisers achieved the greatest success among the surface ships of the German fleet. They destroyed or captured as prizes 136 enemy ships with a total tonnage of over 840 thousand gross tons, which is 51% of the total tonnage sunk by surface forces, as well as 1 light cruiser. Thus, among surface ships they occupy a leading place, although they are hopelessly inferior to submarines.

Battleship "Bismarck".

Starting with the diesel “pocket battleships” of the Deutschland type, all subsequent heavy ships of the German Navy - battleships of the Scharnhorst and Bismarck types, as well as heavy cruisers of the Admiral Hipper type - were built, among other things, to crush the sea trade of opponents. Therefore, let’s compare the successes of auxiliary cruisers with the results of their “aristocratic” colleagues. So, the actions of “pocket” battleships cost the Allies 29 merchant ships with a total tonnage of 171 thousand gross tons, heavy cruisers - 12 ships and 63 thousand gross tons, battleships of the Scharnhorst type - 24 ships and 138 thousand gross tons, battleships of the " Bismarck - 0. Thus, the specially built surface raiders have 65 ships of 372 thousand GRT against 136 of 840 thousand GRT due to the auxiliary cruisers.

It would seem that the conclusions lie on the surface. The largest and most modern German battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz, did not sink a single transport in their few trips to sea. The successes of other heavy ships, taking into account their cost and combat qualities, also cannot be considered outstanding. But the auxiliary cruisers - in fact, not warships at all: slow-moving, weakly armed merchant ships, the costs of re-equipping which are in no way commensurate with the cost of building a cruiser or battleship - conducted active combat activity, being on voyages for many months, and destroyed more tonnage, not to mention the fact that they captured 29 prizes.

But it's not that simple. The large ships of the Kriegsmarine, although they did not achieve huge results in terms of sunk tonnage, created much greater tension on trade routes, since they delayed convoys that had to be covered by battleships (which, in particular, led to the torpedoing of the battleship Malaya), and the purely psychological effect of their actions on communications was higher. Suffice it to recall the Tirpitz, which, according to the English historian David Woodworth, was “a headache for the Admiralty, whose anxiety was beginning to border on panic.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill expressed himself no less colorfully about this ship, which did not cause any real damage to the enemy: “It creates general fear and threat at all points at once.”

Not a single auxiliary cruiser could achieve a similar result through its actions. However, no one set such goals for them. The main areas of activity of commercial raiders were, after all, remote areas of the world's oceans, where the rest of the Kriegsmarine combat units could not operate for a long time and successfully.

The actions of the German raiders in 1940, when six ships of the “first wave” sank and captured 58 merchant ships with a capacity of 400.8 thousand gross tons, showed that the efforts of the British to counter them at that time ended in failure. In the first half of 1941, losses continued to be high, but by the end of the year, Allied trade communications were almost free of enemy auxiliary cruisers, two of which were sunk.

In this regard, one can argue a little with the statements of the German admirals given above. Both the radar and the aircraft, in essence, did not play such a big role in the Allied anti-cruise operations. Only “Penguin” and “Atlantis” were detected from the air, and the British already knew in advance from decrypted messages that the second one was in a given area. And the radar certainly didn’t provide any help. The success of the allies is primarily associated with the implementation effective system control over merchant shipping in all parts of the world, including the introduction of a convoy system, attacking which was like death for auxiliary cruisers. German raiders were initially forced to operate away from the busiest shipping routes due to the fact that the latter were better covered. And with the outbreak of the war, the intensity of traffic in the areas of their activity fell even further. In addition, the British Admiralty managed to strengthen patrolling of dangerous areas of the ocean by ships and aircraft. Real victims Only Atlantis, Penguin and Cormoran became the Allies' anti-raider actions. “Stir” and “Mikhel” were largely ruined by errors in the actions of their crews; moreover, the fate of the second was fatally influenced by the lack of coordination of actions with the Japanese naval command. The rest of the raiders died, no longer on the campaign.

The entry of the United States into the war finally put an end to Germany's plans to wage an ocean cruising war. And if in the first half of 1942 the Germans managed to send three more raiders on the campaign, then the remaining attempts, due to the tight naval and air blockade of the territory of Germany and the countries it occupied, ended in complete failure. The only effective weapon of the Third Reich at sea was the submarine. However, the actions of the German auxiliary cruisers are among the most striking and interesting pages stories naval battles Second World War.

Compound

List of Kriegsmarine auxiliary cruisers:

• Orion (HSK-1)
• "Atlantis" (HSK-2)
• "Widder" (HSK-3)
• "Thor" (HSK-4)
• "Penguin" (HSK-5)
• "Shtir" (HSK-6)
• "Komet" (HSK-7)
• "Cormoran" (HSK-8)
• "Michel" (HSK-9)
• "Coronel" (HSK-10)
• "Hansa" (did not go on a military campaign)

Statistics

Some interesting statistics:

• greatest number days spent at sea: 642 (“Thor” for two trips), 622 (“Atlantis” for one trip);
• the largest tonnage of sunk and captured ships: 154,739 GRT (“Penguin” together with the “Passat”), 152,584 GRT (“Thor” for two trips), 144,506 GRT (“Atlantis” for one trip);
• the largest number of ships sunk: 18 (“Thor” in two trips), 16 (“Atlantis” in one trip);
• the largest number of prizes: “Penguin” - 16;
• best result for a day at sea: 25,700 GRT (Penguin, prizes), 17,801 GRT (Thor, sunk);
• largest ship sunk: Norwegian whaling base "Cosmos", 17,801 GRT ("Thor");
• the most affected shipowner: British Tanker Company (4 vessels, 24,342 GRT), Lamport and Holt (3 vessels, 25,649 GRT).

Gallery

It was May 1940, the war was going on, the armies of Nazi Germany were victoriously moving west, and when the lookout of the British liner City of Exeter, plowing the waters of the South Atlantic, reported a mast looming on the horizon, the captain became wary. But half an hour later, he was relieved to identify the approaching stranger as the 8,400-ton ship Kashii Maru - Japanese, therefore neutral.

On its deck, a woman was rocking a stroller; next to her, lazily leaning on the rails, stood several members of the crew, the tails of their untucked shirts, like all Japanese sailors, fluttering in the wind. The two ships separated without stopping or giving any signals. In fact, the carriage was empty, and the “woman” was not one at all. The names of the “Japanese” sailors leaning on the rails were Fritz, Klaus and Karl. The rest of the crew - sailors, gunners, torpedomen, 350 people in total - disappeared inside the ship. Hidden beneath the plywood fans, canvas pipes and paint was the German raider Atlantis, one of the most dangerous predators ever to hunt the oceans.

Throughout the war, the Germans equipped nine such raiders, which sank a total of 136 ships. But Atlantis had the most victories and trophies to its name, the most miles traveled astern, and one of the most distinguished captains. She left the slipway as the Goldenfels, a 7,800-ton fast merchant vessel. When the war began, it was secretly equipped with six 5.9-inch guns, a large number of smaller caliber guns, torpedo tubes, a seaplane and a load of mines. To make it look more like a harmless merchant, a variety of supports, supports, and braces were installed on it.

In March 1940, the Atlantis, under the command of Bernhard Rogge, an imposing forty-year-old German navy captain, sneaked off the Norwegian coast, pretending to be a Soviet steamer, and slipped into the North Atlantic. The order given to him was: to strike with maximum surprise all ships sailing past the African Cape of Good Hope.

After crossing the equator on April 25, Atlantis lowered the Soviet flag and removed the false funnel, turning into a “Japanese” ship, met by the City of Exeter, which Captain Rogge did not attack due to large number passengers on board.

The first victim of Atlantis was the British ship Scientist. The order to drift and not transmit radiograms came as a complete surprise to the British sailors. The radio operator maintained his presence of mind and sent a signal meaning “an enemy armed merchant ship is trying to stop me.” The Atlantis opened fire, hitting the Scientist in the middle part and destroying the radio room. 77 crew members of the damaged ship, two of whom were wounded, one fatally, boarded boats. All of them were taken aboard the raider as prisoners of war, and the Scientist itself was sunk. The Germans moved on past the Cape of Good Hope.

Two weeks later, Captain Rogge intercepted a British warning that a German auxiliary cruiser disguised as a Japanese vessel might appear in the Indian Ocean. Immediately, Atlantis threw off its “kimono” and turned into the Dutch motor ship Abbekerk.

His second victim was the Norwegian motor ship Tirranna, loaded with supplies for Australian troops in Palestine. Captain Rogge sent a prize crew to it and carried it with him for several weeks, using it as a floating prison. A month after the Tirranna, three more ships fell victim to the raider one after another, and the next month as many as five.

Messages found in a ship's trash bin revealed the British maritime trading codes to the Germans. After this, the Admiralty ordered all its ships to report suspicious ships by radio, regardless of the consequences. As a consequence of this, Atlantis was ordered to open fire first, then negotiate. Radiograms were sent from approximately every second ship attacked by the raider, most of which were fired upon by guns and sometimes with significant damage. However, it should be noted that Captain Rogge conducted his naval war as “civilized” as possible under those conditions. He kept prisoners in cabins and took on board everything that could be salvaged. During the 20 months Rogge spent at sea, there was a point when he held more than a thousand prisoners of all ages, both sexes and 20 nationalities. They were all given the same ration that the team received. During the day they were allowed to go on deck, unless Atlantis was in combat, and swim in the canvas pool. The captains of sunken ships had separate cabins. When the prisoners had to be transferred to other ships, Captain Rogge organized farewell dinners in honor of the captains.

The first half of the autumn of 1940 turned out to be extremely meager for production for Atlantis: only one ship in forty days. But in November, within two days, he came across three ships at once. The Norwegian tanker Ole Jakob, filled to the brim with high-octane gasoline, was captured without resistance by two Atlantis officers disguised as British officers who sailed up in a motor boat. The Norwegian tanker Teddy burned for several hours, turning into a huge torch, visible for several miles. And the British ship Automedon, carrying important documents, including a top secret War Office report and mail for the British Far East High Command, surrendered after a shell fired from the raider killed everyone on the bridge.

The year 1941 began poorly for Atlantis - only four ships in a few months. One of them was the Egyptian liner Zam Zam, carrying 140 American missionaries. Both the passengers and the Zam Zama crew - 309 people in total - were safely transferred to Atlantis. The next day, another German ship, the Dresden, freed the raider from all the prisoners and after some time delivered them to Bordeaux. The Allies suffered, perhaps, no less from the horror that the raider inspired than from the loss of their ships. The British had to send their warships, badly needed in other areas, south to search for him; captains of transport ships were forced to navigate them along detour routes, wasting time and fuel; it became more difficult to recruit teams, and a “danger zone” premium had to be paid.

For most of the summer, Atlantis sailed the southern expanses of the Indian Ocean, meeting no one except seagulls. Finally, on September 10, 1941, he captured his 22nd - and final - prize, the Norwegian ship Silvaplana. On November 21, landing after a morning flight, the Atlantis reconnaissance aircraft, having received damage, failed, and this happened just at the time when it was needed most. The next day, the raider had to meet with the submarine U-126 to take fuel on board. It was a rather complex operation, during which Atlantis became very vulnerable. The rendezvous took place halfway between Brazil and Africa, and by breakfast time the fuel pumping had begun. Several members of the raider's crew were sitting in a motor boat next to the submarine, and the captain of U-126 boarded the Atlantis, whose port side vehicles were dismantled for repairs.

Suddenly looking ahead, peering into the flooded sunlight horizon, noticed the top of the mast. A few minutes later, the Germans discovered that the heavy British cruiser Devonshire, commanded by Captain R. D. Oliver, was approaching them. Instantly, the cables connecting the two ships were removed, and U-126 sank, leaving its captain aboard Atlantis. Did the British manage to see the submarine? From a hastily disconnected hose, fuel spilled into the water around the raider like a rainbow-colored spot. Atlantis had only one thing left to do: start negotiations and, stalling for time, try to mislead the enemy and lure him into an area where the U-126 torpedoes could reach him.

But Captain Oliver was very careful. With the exception of the fans and some other parts, this ship, which had spilled fuel around itself, corresponded to the Admiralty's description of the elusive raider. Therefore, alternately changing course and staying out of torpedo range, he approached the Atlantis and captured it in the artillery fork with two shots.

The raider radioed that the ship was called Polyphemus. The captain of the cruiser sent a request to the commander-in-chief in the South Atlantic: could the ship he encountered turn out to be the real Polyphemus? For almost an hour, Atlantis, lying adrift and gently rocking on the waves, dragged out the negotiations. Captain Rogge never gave up hope that U-126 would sneak up on the cruiser and fire a torpedo. But the senior officer on the submarine instead ordered him to remain near the raider. At 9.34 the response from the Commander-in-Chief in the South Atlantic was received: “No - I repeat - no!” A minute later, the Devonshire opened fire. After the third salvo of eight-inch guns that covered the Atlantis, Captain Rogge gave the order to set the explosive clock mechanisms and abandon the ship.

A minute before 10 o'clock the bow artillery magazine exploded, and a few minutes later the Atlantis sank under the water amid applause and farewell cries of the sailors for whom it had been home for 20 months. Captain Rogge, who was in one of the boats with his Scottish terrier Ferry, saluted while standing.

Captain Oliver, as he explained in his report to the Admiralty, could not approach and pick up survivors “due to the risk of being torpedoed,” so the Devonshire soon disappeared over the horizon. As a result of the attack on the Atlantis, only seven people died, at least a hundred were floating in the water and clinging to the wreckage. The surfaced submarine picked up the wounded and irreplaceable specialists, 200 people were placed in lifeboats, and 52, equipped with life belts and blankets, perched on the deck of U-126, and if it sank, they had to swim to the lifeboats. The nearest land, Brazil, was 950 miles away.

The strange flotilla - six boats pulled by a submarine - set off on their voyage at noon, immediately after the raider was sunk. Twice a day, hot food was distributed using a rubber boat pulled out of the submarine.

On the third day they met the German submarine supply ship Python. The sailors of the Atlantis were brought aboard - only to soon find themselves in the water again, since the Python was met and sunk by another British cruiser, the Dorsetshire, famous for delivering the final blow to the Bismarck in a naval battle six months earlier.

In the end, on German and Italian submarines, the Atlantis crew members reached Saint-Nazaire and from there went to Berlin, where they arrived immediately after the new year of 1942. Captain Rogge received the rank of rear admiral and was appointed to head the training of naval cadets. But later, when his anti-Nazi sentiments were revealed, he was transferred to some unimportant position.

Map of bases and areas of operation of secret raiders

Part one

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

From 1940 to 1943, a total of nine German armed merchant raiders (converted bulk carriers) operated at sea, sinking more than 130 allied or neutral merchant ships with a combined tonnage of more than 850,000 gross register tons (GRT). This is almost three times the total tonnage of merchant ships sunk by German surface warships, whose names are so well known - Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Admiral Graf Spee and others. Overall, surface raiders sank at least as many ships as the mines laid by the German Navy and air force and posed such a serious danger to the Allies during a critical period of the war.

Raiders plied the seas all over the world: they operated in the Arctic, Antarctic, and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The most successful of all the raiders of all wars was Atlantis, which was at sea continuously for twenty-one months and sank 22 ships during this time. The Comet, a tiny ship hardly larger than the ferries that sailed across the English Channel, sailed from the North Cape along the coast of Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. "Penguin" hunted ships of the Allied whaling fleets in the Antarctic, and "Thor" managed to drive away two British armed merchant cruisers that were larger than it. 1
An armed merchant cruiser, or auxiliary cruiser, was a large armed merchant ship used in wartime to escort caravans, maintain blockades, and fight raiders. ( Note lane)

And sink the third one.

Two of these raiders were lost in one-on-one combat, and the fighting was so fierce that both the German ship and its enemy sank as a result. The Cormoran sank and was sunk by the Australian cruiser Sydney; Similarly, the Stier sank the American cargo ship Stephen Hopkins and itself also died. In total, all but two of the nine armed merchant raiders were sunk, but it took the Allied navies three and a half years, and this at a time when the Allies desperately needed every one of their ships to counter the threat from submarines and to prepare for the liberation of the occupied territories of Europe and Asia.

The fight against German raiders ended twelve years ago, but the history of this fight cannot be considered simply as history, since the Russians, in creating anew a first-class surface navy, are currently paying maximum attention to high-speed ocean raiders.

NATO forces must continue to take into account the challenges posed by such raiders, despite the developments in aircraft, submarines and guided missiles over the past decade.

It is expected that by 1957 Russia will have about thirty large cruisers designed similar to raiders. This fact gives an idea of ​​the extent to which this problem may arise. For comparison, it can be noted that during the Second World War, a total of nine armed merchant ships, four large and three “pocket” battleships, as well as two heavy cruisers acted as raiders on the German side.

The first stage of preparations for the World War II campaigns against Allied merchant shipping began in 1927, when the Weimar Republic was at the height of its power. The German Navy, in theory at that time, was reduced to a purely symbolic size. The articles on disarmament of the Treaty of Versailles took care of this. 2
From 1921 to 1935, until the time Hitler revoked the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany may have had a total of six old battleships (two in reserve), six light cruisers (two in reserve), twenty-four destroyers and torpedo boats(eight in reserve). No submarines or naval or military aircraft were allowed to be kept.

The first stage of rearmament was planning. In neutral ports, it was necessary to organize a certain structure that, in case of war, could purchase local supplies and, loading them onto German merchant ships, take these ships to sea through a possible enemy blockade in order to supply food to raiders deprived of the opportunity to enter their waters. In addition to this, the duty of the branches of this organization, which the Germans called "stages", was to supply the raiders and German naval officers with all kinds of intelligence relating to commerce and shipping that could in principle be useful to them. Moreover, it was assumed that the agents of the “stages” - unpaid volunteers in peacetime - would also carry out small-scale economic warfare operations. Basically, this meant manipulating the activities of the local exchange through the spread of rumors.

In 1928, Admiral Erich Raeder was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy. He held this position until 1943, when he resigned due to fundamental disagreement with Hitler over the use of surface vessels to support submarine operations against Allied merchant shipping. It was Raeder who was involved in the restoration of the German Navy and planning its strategy in World War II. During the First World War, he distinguished himself while on the staff of Admiral Hipper, who commanded the battlecruisers of the High Seas Fleet during the Battle of Jutland, and came to the main post of the Navy with very definite ideas about cruising warfare. In particular, he wrote the first two volumes of the official German history of naval warfare, which dealt with cruising operations in foreign waters, and this probably helped him finalize his position. Three years after planning for the “phases” began, funds began to be secretly allocated in the naval budget to finance them.

In 1934, also secretly, money was allocated for the construction of four auxiliary cruisers (disguised as merchant ships), but these ships were not built because the German army agreed to allocate only 24 5.9-inch caliber guns to the Navy to arm them. This caused bitter jokes in naval circles about “guns or butter.” They said that Goering got the oil, the army got the guns, and the Navy got nothing.

Raeder tried to get these fake merchant ships built because he believed that as long as Germany and its allies did not have bases, they would not be able to use conventional warships as raiders. Raiders would need to be camouflaged as cargo ships, as experience in the First World War had shown that liners used in this capacity were too visible, especially from the air.

In 1934, Raeder failed to obtain guns for his four ships. As a result, in 1939, the German Navy was not preparing to enter service - not a single auxiliary cruiser was being built or converted; However, during the September crisis of 1938, the dress rehearsal of the “stages” system was successfully held.

In the absence of armed trade raiders at the beginning of World War II, Raeder still had to rely on military ships. In accordance with this, immediately before the attack on Poland, the “pocket” battleships “Deutschland” and “Admiral Graf Spee” were sent to sea. By their appearance, they were immediately recognizable as German ships, but their diesel engines gave them the ability to operate for a long time on the open sea without replenishing fuel supplies.

While the Germans clearly lacked surface raiders, the British and French navies were completely unable to protect Allied merchant ships from those raiders who did manage to put to sea. Such protection could only be provided by a system of convoys on all major trade routes, but a sufficient number of cruisers to escort convoys simply did not exist in nature.

The only possible alternative to convoys was: firstly, patrolling communication nodes through which shipping routes must necessarily pass and which there was no way to bypass; secondly, the organization of the movement of ships along different, constantly changing routes, which meant that merchant ships had to spend additional fuel and time bypassing areas in which raiders were expected to be present. Finally, search groups of battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers were created that could intercept the raiders when their area of ​​operations became known. A total of nine such mixed British-French groups were formed in the early months of the war; they included 4 battleships, 14 cruisers and 5 aircraft carriers. In total, the British and French forces at that time consisted of 23 battleships and 8 aircraft carriers. Thus, as we see, at that time significant Allied forces were spent fighting the two raiders - “pocket” battleships. This clearly shows the seriousness of the situation that the Allies might have found themselves in if Hitler had given Raeder time to develop the first-class surface fleet that he asked for.

Raeder expected his forces to be ready by 1944–1945, and planned operations involving them exclusively as a large-scale cruising war, supported by a flotilla of more than a hundred submarines. For surface warfare, according to Raeder's plans, it was planned to have the following ships:

6 battleships displacing 56,000 tons each with eight 16-inch guns;

2 battleships of 42,000 tons each with eight 15-inch guns;

2 battleships of 31,000 tons each with nine 11-inch guns;

3 battlecruisers of 31,000 tons each with six 15-inch guns;

3 “pocket” battleships of 14,000 tons each with six 11-inch guns;

2 aircraft carriers of 20,000 tons, with 40 aircraft on board;

8 heavy cruisers of 14,000 tons each with eight 8-inch guns;

9 light cruisers of 6,000–8,000 tons each with eight or nine 5.9-inch guns, as well as destroyers and other light vessels.

These ships were supposed to be divided into three groups. The small battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were to remain in German waters and tie up part of the British fleet, while battlecruisers, pocket battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers were to put to sea in as raiders to hunt merchant ships. It was expected that British heavy ships and cruisers would be sent to hunt the raiders and themselves become the target of the hunt for the 56,000-ton battleships, operating in two groups of three each.

To go from these grandiose plans to a situation where the German naval headquarters (SKL or Seekriegsleitung) controlled the movements of just two “pocket” battleships was a severe sobering experience, but Raeder, limiting himself to a message of protest, got to work. It was necessary to wage war with available means.

He needed both ships and bases. As for bases, Raeder hoped that his ships would be able to operate from Russian, Italian (East African) and Japanese ports, although all of these countries were neutral at that time. The use of these ports would save his ships from having to cross the British blockade line, stretching from Scotland to Norway, again and again every time they needed to go to the ocean or return to port. The British blockade line consisted of approximately 25 armed liners; with the outbreak of war they were replaced by similar military vessels and sent to cargo lines.

As soon as the war began, the Germans began converting a number of merchant ships into raiders. The actions of these courts are covered in this book. As already mentioned, there were nine of them in total; another failed to make it across the English Channel, and two more were refitted but never made it to sea. It may seem surprising that out of the entire merchant fleet, which in 1939 numbered 250 ships with a capacity of 5,000 to 10,000 GRT, only ten ships were converted into raiders, however, as we will see, in order to successfully convert into raiders, ships had to have special qualities. However, even among the converted ships, not all of them possessed them.

The conversion of the first ship was completed only at the end of March 1940. A little later it became clear that armed trade raiders would have to, at least initially, replace large warships rather than strengthen the fleet involved in the Norwegian campaign. During its course, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged, and the heavy cruiser Blücher, a ship in the series with Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen, was sunk.

The first winter of the war was marked only by the campaigns of the Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland, as well as the sortie of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, during which the cruiser Rawalpindi, converted from a merchant ship, was sunk. By the beginning of the second military winter, the situation had already completely changed, although by that time the raiders had managed to sink only 11 ships with a total capacity of 59,000 GRT. The fall of France and Italy's entry into the war meant that Britain's forces were stretched almost to breaking point. Most of the battleships, and with them many other ships that had previously acted against raiders on the high seas, were recalled and sent to the Mediterranean Sea. As for the protection of ships on shipping lines, convoys with troops began to receive maximum priority. In the dangerous waters of the North Atlantic, these convoys were fully protected, meaning they were escorted throughout their journey by heavy warships capable of keeping any raider away. Of course, this mattered, but, on the other hand, convoys transporting food and military materials were left with virtually no security. They had to rely mainly on cover forces and search parties.

During the most difficult period of the war, Britain's naval forces were so insufficient that for the North Atlantic, the home fleet and Force H, only two aircraft carriers and five cruisers were found in Gibraltar. While the North Atlantic troop convoys were more or less protected, to protect all other troop convoys around the world there was one R-class battleship (obsolete), eight cruisers and one armed merchant cruiser. All the merchant convoys were left with one more R-class battleship and a handful of armed merchant cruisers. In practice, this meant that ships were forced to sail either without security at all, or as part of caravans with completely inadequate escort. We will see that almost every one of the more than 130 ships sunk by merchant raiders sailed alone, relying only on their own luck. An example of what could happen in the second case is the event that took place in November 1940, when the “pocket” battleship Admiral Scheer entered the ocean. She was the first of the German heavy ships to begin operating in the World Ocean after the battleship of the same type, Graf Spee, was destroyed ten months earlier.

On October 23, the Scheer, under the command of Captain Kranke, left the Kiel Canal through the Brunsbüttel lock into the North Sea and, under the cover of fog, circled the north of Iceland. After that, he was ready to carry out one simple order the captain received: “Attack North Atlantic convoys.”

German naval intelligence reported to Scheer that a large convoy had left Halifax for home on October 27, and the "pocket" battleship hastened to intercept. On the afternoon of November 5, convoy HX-84 was spotted from the battleship. The convoy consisted of 37 ships, accompanied by the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay, under the command of Royal Navy Captain E.S.F. Figena.

It was already getting dark when “Scheer” went on the attack. It was a large, fast and armored vessel with six 11-inch and eight 5.9-inch guns, equipped with modern fire control devices. He was opposed by the slow Jervis Bay, which did not have an ounce of armor, with outdated 6-inch guns, controlled in a completely primitive way.

Spotting the enemy, Captain Fidgen immediately informed the Admiralty of the attack and ordered the convoy to disperse. He rushed towards the enemy at full speed, simultaneously laying a smoke screen in front of the convoy ships. Fidgen hoped to delay the Sheer and allow his charges to disappear into the darkness. As for the fight between his ship and the raider, the captain was well aware that there could only be one result.

The Scheer opened fire from a distance of 18,000 yards, well beyond the range of Jervis Bay's guns, and immediately covered the enemy with fire and continued its bombardment. Less than an hour had passed, and the British ship was already burning from bow to stern. All fire control ceased, although the guns that were still operational continued to fire independently. At 20.00 the Jervis Bay sank, taking with it 200 officers and sailors along with the captain. Meanwhile, the Scheer set off at top speed in pursuit of the scattered merchant ships, but it was already dark and the ships were difficult to find. In addition, the raider had little time left, because Krancke knew that the Jervis Bay had reported an attack, and very soon planes and large warships could appear. He was in such a hurry that he managed to find and sink only five of the thirty-seven ships of the caravan. One of the ships that managed to reach the United Kingdom was the tanker San Demetrio. The raider's shells set the tanker on fire, and the crew abandoned it on boats. Later, one of the boats with the tanker's crew under the command of the second mate returned to the burning ship. The sailors put out the fire and brought the tanker home to the United Kingdom in triumph.

In order to sink 47,000 GRT of ship tonnage, the “pocket” battleship had to spend a third of the ammunition for the main guns and half of the ammunition for the auxiliary guns.

Nevertheless, this event turned out to be almost a disaster for the North Atlantic convoys. The entire system was disorganized for twelve days; and for a whole week not a single convoy of ships arrived in Britain. This was the longest break in the passage of convoys during the entire war. A significant amount of ship's capacity and time were lost; For five weeks, search groups scoured the sea in vain in search of the raider, but he was already in the Indian Ocean. Finally, after meeting with several armed merchant raiders and tankers supplying them with fuel, the Scheer returned to Germany. The campaign lasted 161 days; 16 ships with a total tonnage of 99,000 GRT were sunk.

After receiving encouraging news about the Scheer attack on convoy HX-84, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was also sent to the Atlantic. It, unlike the Scheer, did not have diesel engines, but turbine engines, which meant that it required two and a half times more fuel. In addition, the new type of Admiral Hipper turbines did not work well. It quickly became clear that this magnificent-looking, huge ship was not reliable unless there was a support vessel within 600 miles of it. However, on Christmas Eve, 700 miles west of Cape Finisterre, a convoy transporting troops was spotted from a cruiser. The Admiral Hipper followed the convoy and attacked it with torpedoes at night. All the torpedoes missed, and the cruiser itself was driven away by the escort cruisers, Berwick and Bonaventure. Two days later, Admiral Hipper entered Brest, where she remained until February 1, when she again set sail for the Atlantic. 200 miles east of the Azores, the cruiser spotted a slow-moving unescorted convoy bound for Freetown and sank seven of the nineteen ships. This happened on February 12. Two days later, the Admiral Hipper returned to Brest because its captain was concerned about the condition of the engines and the lack of fuel and ammunition.

It was in February 1941 that raiders - both warships and armed merchant ships - were most active. At that moment there were two battleships at sea - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau - as well as Scheer, Hipper and six merchant ships converted into raiders.

"Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" in a two-month joint voyage dealt with 22 ships with a total tonnage of 115,622 GRT. At the beginning of the campaign, they were almost intercepted by the metropolitan fleet, then both battleships entered the route of convoys heading to Halifax. To replenish fuel supplies, they met several times in the Arctic and subarctic zones with tankers sent to meet them.

On February 8, the raiders discovered convoy HX-106, but the battleship Resolution managed to drive them away. Admiral Lutyens did not want to risk his ships. He feared that the 15-inch guns of the outdated British battleship could cause serious damage to them. In vain did Hofmann, captain of the Scharnhorst, propose to attack the British battleship so that the Gneisenau could deal with the unprotected merchant ships at that time. However, Lutyens, who died shortly afterwards on the Bismarck, could not rid himself of the thought that even relatively minor damage could mean the failure or loss of one of his large ships, and even so far from any friendly base.

After this failure, Lutyens headed further west. He believed that closer to the American coast, British convoys scattered, making it easy to attack single unprotected ships. In fact, five such ships were discovered and sunk, but then the alarm was raised and the German battleships went further south. There they met another British convoy, again under the protection of a single battleship, the Malaya. And again they did not attack for the same reason as during the meeting with Resolution.