New moon
Aug 20, 2030 hours. SMS Nürnberg, Ucluelet harbour.
A procession of lifeboats carried the population of Ucluelet out to the RMS Niagara, moored just outside the harbour mouth. The sun had set over the town, behind the Ucluth peninsula to the west, and the high wisps of cloud overhead were lit pink and purple. As the line of boats approached the harbour mouth a teenage boy sprang up, jumped overboard and swam for the treed north shore of the bay. The citizens of Ucluelet watched with hushed apprehension as the strokes of his arms crossed the water, then they and the German crews alike cheered as he arrived at the shore. A pair of German sentries met him at the waterline, and brought him back to the lifeboat, tired and dripping, in Leipzig’s dinghy.
Princess Charlotte topped up on ammunition for her 5.2 cm guns, her 3.7cm pom-poms, and her machineguns. Leipzig continued coaling as the sky dimmed, then darkened, and had finished loading her bunkers to their full 850 ton capacity at 2100 hours. The cruisers juggled their prize crew allotments, so that the collier Bengrove and tanker Desalba were now crewed by sailors from Leipzig, allowing Nürnberg to take back 54 sailors for the coming action.
Twenty of those men were immediately placed on the Galiano, to give her a landing party with which to carry out her coming foray against the Bamfield Transpacific Cable Station. The facility would reasonably be expected to have a garrison, and the presence of armed militiamen on the patrol launch that Galiano had driven aground earlier in the day tended to confirm the suspicion. “How large a garrison, we can only guess,” said Von Schönberg to Krüger, in their mission briefing. “The small number of men on the launch suggests a small unit, but we just don’t know. Destroying the shore facilities will be more effective, and interrupt the telegraph service for longer, but if the station proves to be too well defended, then cutting the land cable and the submarine cable will have to do. At least you will have that erbsenschütze of a deck gun to serve as a support weapon.”
Niagara, Bengrove, and Desalba headed directly out to sea in the very last light of the day. Von Schönberg watched their silhouettes shrink against the last glow of dusk, then disappear into the murk of darkness. All ships were blacked out.
At 2230, when it was pitch black, Nurnberg, Liepzig and Princess Charlotte left the harbour, passing the unattended dim temporary light on Amphitrite Point. The ships’ navigators had carefully studied the rocks lining Felice Channel on charts and in daylight, so as to stay off them in the dark. The warships headed west at first, to put safe distance between them and the darkened shore, and then turned south, towards the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Once they had sea room the ships proceeded in loose line ahead formation, with Nürnberg in the lead, followed by Leipzig then Princess Charlotte, with a kilometer between vessels and steaming at 18 knots.
As the warships moved off shore, the light of Cape Beale became clear. The ships were too far away to be illuminated by the lighthouse, but appreciated its guidance.
By 2330 the fleet was well off shore riding on ocean swells, and could make out the next lighthouse at Pacheena Point. “There is a Dominion Wireless Station located with that lighthouse,” said the pilot Mueller senior to Von Schönberg. “They could report our position on the way back.”
“Good,” said Von Schönberg. “I am glad to hear you are talking about the way back. I see I have inspired confidence.”
When August 21st, 1914 arrived at 2400 hours, the ships could clearly see in the blackness Carmanah Point Lighthouse ahead to their port, and the Cape Flattery light to starboard. These lighthouses defined the entry to the Strait of Juan de Fuca between southern Vancouver Island and Washington State in the neutral United States of America. The chart showed the Strait to be uniformly 10 nautical miles wide and 60 long, until it widened at Victoria, and branched into a T, south to Puget Sound and Seattle, and north to Vancouver and Georgia Strait, separating Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia.
The international boundary ran down the length of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, on the centerline, leaving a 5 mile wide strip of Canadian waters for the Germans to use. Von Schönberg intended to be very scrupulous about observing American neutrality. Still he kept the fleet as close to the boundary as he dared, in order to keep his ships removed from anyone who might be looking towards the sea from the Canadian side. The Perseid meteor shower was waning, well past its peak, but still provided an orange trail in the sky every few minutes. The stars were bright in the black sky, and gave some perspective on their path where they were eclipsed by distant jagged mountains on either side of the Strait.
At 0100 hours, charts showed the squadron to be off Port Renfrew, a logging and fishing hamlet at the southern end of the West Coast Lifesaving Telegraph Trail. The trail was established in 1906 after the deadly wreck of the SS Valencia, to provide some hope of salvation to the survivors of the frequent shipwrecks on this wild rocky shore. Here the blacked out squadron passed within 3 miles of HMCS CC-1, running on the surface with her diesel engines, also blacked out, and on the northern end of her patrol pattern. Neither of the forces noticed the other in the dark Strait, over the sounds of their own machinery. At 0115 hours, GGS Malaspina, steaming west at 14 knots blacked out, missed the German squadron in the dark at a distance of 4 nautical miles, and they passed each other oncoming at a combined speed of 32 knots.
At 0145, the German squadron passed Jordan River, where a logging camp lay on the estuary at waters edge, and far upstream, lost in the forest, sat the hydroelectric plant providing electricity to the city of Victoria. Von Schönberg, on Nürberg’s bridge, was in the midst of commenting to Mueller how he felt reassured to be under the same constellations as in Germany, when all were blinded by a sudden bright light. A searchlight was playing over the bridge. “Action Stations!” called Von Schönberg, even though the guns were already fully manned.
The searchlight lingered on the Nürberg’s bridge windows for a few seconds, then wandered over her hull and rigging, looking for her ensign. Von Schönberg did not need binoculars to see the vessel in detail. She was a steam tug, with a large deckhouse and single funnel, and a small gun on her foredeck manned and pointed at Nürnberg. A British Red Ensign flew from her jackstaff. The tug was perhaps 20 metres long, and only 500 meters off Nürnberg’s port bow.
“Illuminate!” Nürnberg’s four powerful searchlights pinned to tug to the spot. “Fire!” he ordered. Five 10.5 cm guns fired as one. The tug was surrounded by waterspouts. “Prepare to jam transmissions!” As Nürberg’s gun crews reloaded, the Liepzig straddled the tug with her opening salvo from 1000 metres astern, then Nürnberg hit her again with another broadside. The tug was saturated with splashes, and orange flashes marked a number of hits, but the small vessel was so obscured that it was hard to tell.
“Cease fire!” Von Schönberg ordered. The tug emerged from the spray, listing twenty degrees and missing large parts of her upperworks. Her hull was clearly of wooden construction, judging by the way it was coming apart. The crew of the deck gun had disappeared, if they had gotten a shot off there was no evidence of where it might have gone. The wheelhouse roof was missing. Grey steam poured from the ruin of her deckhouse amidships. Another three shell salvo from Leipzig lifted the sea skyward around the tug, and her funnel fell over. “Signal Cease Fire!”
The sinking tug rapidly drew astern, surrounded by rings of churned water, and still pinned in the white searchlight pools, as Nürnberg maintained her course at 18 knots. Several men dashed from the after deckhouse and jumped into the sea. The tug continued to list until she capsized and her upturned hull slowly sank. Leipzig passed the capsized hull by. Princess Charlotte lit the sinking wreck with her own searchlight, and began to slow.
STOPPING TO PICK UP SURVIVORS, the liner signaled by morse light. She was already swinging out a boat.
“Extinguish illumination!” Von Schönberg ordered. “Someone is bound to notice that!” he said. His eyes surveyed the shore, five miles or so away on either side of the Strait. Other than the distant lighthouses, not a light was to be seen on either shore, or on the sea. “I was so hoping to maintain surprise.” He lingered silently in thought.
“Wireless reports no transmissions from enemy vessel sir,” reported a sailor. “No jamming transmissions were made in response.”
Herman Mueller stood transfixed beside him, his face white, and knuckles as well from gripping the bridge rail. “So sudden…” he muttered to himself.
“Yes,” Von Schönberg answered. “This is war.” A thought struck him. “Signals, send a message to Leipzig…” A morse light message was flashed aftward to Leipzig, and moments later a strong wireless message was received, in clear, with the correct call sign.
RMS NIAGARA BLACKED OUT IN STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA COLLIDED WITH SMALL PATROL VESSEL STOP VESSEL CAPSIZED AND SANK WITH BOILER EXPLOSION STOP RENDERED ASSISTANCE BUT AFRAID ALL HANDS LOST STOP
A procession of lifeboats carried the population of Ucluelet out to the RMS Niagara, moored just outside the harbour mouth. The sun had set over the town, behind the Ucluth peninsula to the west, and the high wisps of cloud overhead were lit pink and purple. As the line of boats approached the harbour mouth a teenage boy sprang up, jumped overboard and swam for the treed north shore of the bay. The citizens of Ucluelet watched with hushed apprehension as the strokes of his arms crossed the water, then they and the German crews alike cheered as he arrived at the shore. A pair of German sentries met him at the waterline, and brought him back to the lifeboat, tired and dripping, in Leipzig’s dinghy.
Princess Charlotte topped up on ammunition for her 5.2 cm guns, her 3.7cm pom-poms, and her machineguns. Leipzig continued coaling as the sky dimmed, then darkened, and had finished loading her bunkers to their full 850 ton capacity at 2100 hours. The cruisers juggled their prize crew allotments, so that the collier Bengrove and tanker Desalba were now crewed by sailors from Leipzig, allowing Nürnberg to take back 54 sailors for the coming action.
Twenty of those men were immediately placed on the Galiano, to give her a landing party with which to carry out her coming foray against the Bamfield Transpacific Cable Station. The facility would reasonably be expected to have a garrison, and the presence of armed militiamen on the patrol launch that Galiano had driven aground earlier in the day tended to confirm the suspicion. “How large a garrison, we can only guess,” said Von Schönberg to Krüger, in their mission briefing. “The small number of men on the launch suggests a small unit, but we just don’t know. Destroying the shore facilities will be more effective, and interrupt the telegraph service for longer, but if the station proves to be too well defended, then cutting the land cable and the submarine cable will have to do. At least you will have that erbsenschütze of a deck gun to serve as a support weapon.”
Niagara, Bengrove, and Desalba headed directly out to sea in the very last light of the day. Von Schönberg watched their silhouettes shrink against the last glow of dusk, then disappear into the murk of darkness. All ships were blacked out.
At 2230, when it was pitch black, Nurnberg, Liepzig and Princess Charlotte left the harbour, passing the unattended dim temporary light on Amphitrite Point. The ships’ navigators had carefully studied the rocks lining Felice Channel on charts and in daylight, so as to stay off them in the dark. The warships headed west at first, to put safe distance between them and the darkened shore, and then turned south, towards the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Once they had sea room the ships proceeded in loose line ahead formation, with Nürnberg in the lead, followed by Leipzig then Princess Charlotte, with a kilometer between vessels and steaming at 18 knots.
As the warships moved off shore, the light of Cape Beale became clear. The ships were too far away to be illuminated by the lighthouse, but appreciated its guidance.
By 2330 the fleet was well off shore riding on ocean swells, and could make out the next lighthouse at Pacheena Point. “There is a Dominion Wireless Station located with that lighthouse,” said the pilot Mueller senior to Von Schönberg. “They could report our position on the way back.”
“Good,” said Von Schönberg. “I am glad to hear you are talking about the way back. I see I have inspired confidence.”
When August 21st, 1914 arrived at 2400 hours, the ships could clearly see in the blackness Carmanah Point Lighthouse ahead to their port, and the Cape Flattery light to starboard. These lighthouses defined the entry to the Strait of Juan de Fuca between southern Vancouver Island and Washington State in the neutral United States of America. The chart showed the Strait to be uniformly 10 nautical miles wide and 60 long, until it widened at Victoria, and branched into a T, south to Puget Sound and Seattle, and north to Vancouver and Georgia Strait, separating Vancouver Island from mainland British Columbia.
The international boundary ran down the length of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, on the centerline, leaving a 5 mile wide strip of Canadian waters for the Germans to use. Von Schönberg intended to be very scrupulous about observing American neutrality. Still he kept the fleet as close to the boundary as he dared, in order to keep his ships removed from anyone who might be looking towards the sea from the Canadian side. The Perseid meteor shower was waning, well past its peak, but still provided an orange trail in the sky every few minutes. The stars were bright in the black sky, and gave some perspective on their path where they were eclipsed by distant jagged mountains on either side of the Strait.
At 0100 hours, charts showed the squadron to be off Port Renfrew, a logging and fishing hamlet at the southern end of the West Coast Lifesaving Telegraph Trail. The trail was established in 1906 after the deadly wreck of the SS Valencia, to provide some hope of salvation to the survivors of the frequent shipwrecks on this wild rocky shore. Here the blacked out squadron passed within 3 miles of HMCS CC-1, running on the surface with her diesel engines, also blacked out, and on the northern end of her patrol pattern. Neither of the forces noticed the other in the dark Strait, over the sounds of their own machinery. At 0115 hours, GGS Malaspina, steaming west at 14 knots blacked out, missed the German squadron in the dark at a distance of 4 nautical miles, and they passed each other oncoming at a combined speed of 32 knots.
At 0145, the German squadron passed Jordan River, where a logging camp lay on the estuary at waters edge, and far upstream, lost in the forest, sat the hydroelectric plant providing electricity to the city of Victoria. Von Schönberg, on Nürberg’s bridge, was in the midst of commenting to Mueller how he felt reassured to be under the same constellations as in Germany, when all were blinded by a sudden bright light. A searchlight was playing over the bridge. “Action Stations!” called Von Schönberg, even though the guns were already fully manned.
The searchlight lingered on the Nürberg’s bridge windows for a few seconds, then wandered over her hull and rigging, looking for her ensign. Von Schönberg did not need binoculars to see the vessel in detail. She was a steam tug, with a large deckhouse and single funnel, and a small gun on her foredeck manned and pointed at Nürnberg. A British Red Ensign flew from her jackstaff. The tug was perhaps 20 metres long, and only 500 meters off Nürnberg’s port bow.
“Illuminate!” Nürnberg’s four powerful searchlights pinned to tug to the spot. “Fire!” he ordered. Five 10.5 cm guns fired as one. The tug was surrounded by waterspouts. “Prepare to jam transmissions!” As Nürberg’s gun crews reloaded, the Liepzig straddled the tug with her opening salvo from 1000 metres astern, then Nürnberg hit her again with another broadside. The tug was saturated with splashes, and orange flashes marked a number of hits, but the small vessel was so obscured that it was hard to tell.
“Cease fire!” Von Schönberg ordered. The tug emerged from the spray, listing twenty degrees and missing large parts of her upperworks. Her hull was clearly of wooden construction, judging by the way it was coming apart. The crew of the deck gun had disappeared, if they had gotten a shot off there was no evidence of where it might have gone. The wheelhouse roof was missing. Grey steam poured from the ruin of her deckhouse amidships. Another three shell salvo from Leipzig lifted the sea skyward around the tug, and her funnel fell over. “Signal Cease Fire!”
The sinking tug rapidly drew astern, surrounded by rings of churned water, and still pinned in the white searchlight pools, as Nürnberg maintained her course at 18 knots. Several men dashed from the after deckhouse and jumped into the sea. The tug continued to list until she capsized and her upturned hull slowly sank. Leipzig passed the capsized hull by. Princess Charlotte lit the sinking wreck with her own searchlight, and began to slow.
STOPPING TO PICK UP SURVIVORS, the liner signaled by morse light. She was already swinging out a boat.
“Extinguish illumination!” Von Schönberg ordered. “Someone is bound to notice that!” he said. His eyes surveyed the shore, five miles or so away on either side of the Strait. Other than the distant lighthouses, not a light was to be seen on either shore, or on the sea. “I was so hoping to maintain surprise.” He lingered silently in thought.
“Wireless reports no transmissions from enemy vessel sir,” reported a sailor. “No jamming transmissions were made in response.”
Herman Mueller stood transfixed beside him, his face white, and knuckles as well from gripping the bridge rail. “So sudden…” he muttered to himself.
“Yes,” Von Schönberg answered. “This is war.” A thought struck him. “Signals, send a message to Leipzig…” A morse light message was flashed aftward to Leipzig, and moments later a strong wireless message was received, in clear, with the correct call sign.
RMS NIAGARA BLACKED OUT IN STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA COLLIDED WITH SMALL PATROL VESSEL STOP VESSEL CAPSIZED AND SANK WITH BOILER EXPLOSION STOP RENDERED ASSISTANCE BUT AFRAID ALL HANDS LOST STOP
The Tug Boat and Former Naval VesselRestless
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Carmanah Point Lighthouse
Photographs, history, travel instructions, and GPS coordinates for Carmanah Point Lighthouse.
www.lighthousefriends.com
Cape Beale Lighthouse
Photographs, history, travel instructions, and GPS coordinates for Cape Beale Lighthouse.
www.lighthousefriends.com
Pachena Point Lighthouse
Photographs, history, travel instructions, and GPS coordinates for Pachena Point Lighthouse.
www.lighthousefriends.com
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Hopefully they will get what they bargained for attacking garrisoned positions.
