Aug 21, 0940 hours. SMS Nürnberg, Vancouver harbour.
Von Schönberg watched his shells strike the 5000 ton freighter with the blue funnel, alongside the sawmill, as
Nürnberg raced past. The
Astyanax shook from the impacts. It took only three salvos to hole her sufficiently that the freighter began to capsize away from the wharf. As the
Astyanax listed past 30 degrees some of her deck cargo of lumber broke loose and cascaded into the ocean. His men were shooting well, although more than one shell had overshot and caused the dramatic collapse of the mill water tower.
“Well done,” he said to his gunnery officer. Von Schönberg stood on the port bridge wing, hands clasped behind his back. Once they had made it past the unexpected shore battery at Siwash Point,
Nürnberg had faced no resistance, save for a lone aircraft that had dogged them for a while. Having given orders to engage the moored merchant ships, in turn, with the minimum number of shots to sink them, he now had almost nothing to do, except watch the action unfold. As the sound of the last salvo died away, he said to himself, “275 shells expended.”
Here Von Schönberg was, in the happy, unheard-of position of bombarding one of the British Empire’s critical ports at his leisure, unopposed by the Royal Navy. And the thought passing through his head?
My ammunition supply. Despite his crew’s textbook shooting, the captain was experiencing anxiety with the expenditure of each and every main battery shell.
Nürnberg would receive no replenishment. The shells now in her magazines would have to last her the remainder of this voyage, which most likely meant the remainder of the war. Yet, at this very moment,
Nürnberg was executing the mission she had been build for, bringing the war to the enemy’s centres of commerce. There was no way to get around expending these precious shells.
So be it. But he still counted.
Nürnberg left the sprawling complex of Hastings sawmill behind. Her wake tossed the moored lumber barges and tugs up against the wharf pilings, and caused several acres of floating logs to bob jauntily in the mill pond. To the cruiser’s port bow was a packed rail yard, and behind that, the tall buildings of Vancouver’s downtown, looking cosmopolitan, thought Von Schönberg, like the new commercial center of a mid-sized European city. Von Schönberg swept the skyline with his binoculars. Office buildings and apartments were interspersed with clock and water towers, smoke stacks, and church spires. Rooftop signs read “Blue Ribbon Tea Co.”,”Drysdale’s”, and “Fletcher Pianos Gerhard Heintzman Columbia Grafonolas.” One sign on a rooftop armature read “Bowling Alley,” in mirror image looking from the direction of the water.
Just to the east of downtown an impressively tall, green domed tower was decorated with caryatid figures, their bare breasts a little too racy for the colonial residents, Von Schönberg thought. The center of downtown was dominated by a dour looming Edwardian hotel, apparently still under construction. This edifice had its upper stories decorated with alternating terra cotta moose and bison heads, mounted as if in the hall of a hunting lodge; a motif, Von Schönberg imagined, more to the taste of the sober citizens of Vancouver. At the waterfront, the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railroad was marked by two grandiose station buildings side by side, one a gothic chateau, peak roofed and looking like the somewhat abandoned gatehouse of a medieval city, the other red brick neoclassical with many white columns and shiny new.
“That new brick station just opened three weeks ago,” said the elder Mueller. “The old one was not enough, I suppose. That is the Canadian Pacific Railroad for you.”
At the wharves adjoining downtown, four ocean liners were moored.
“One of our highest priorities here,” Von Schönberg said to Mueller, “is to prevent vessels like that from being used as troopships.”
The first liner, the
Canada Maru, flew half a dozen flags showing the red circle of the Japanese merchant ensign, seemingly from every available halyard. Apparently her captain was taking no chances on being misidentified. She was a neutral, and laying a finger on her was unthinkable, at least until sometime tomorrow night when Japan was expected to declare war on Germany. Crew members in white uniforms stood on her bridge, and watched
Nürnberg pass, through their binoculars. The German cruiser was racing by the cityscape only 300 meters from shore, but at a speed of 18 knots she closed quickly on her stationary targets. The challenge to the gun crews here was not in aiming the guns, since the range was below what was considered point-blank for a naval engagement, but in traversing quickly enough to stay trained as they moved past their targets.
The next berth to the west of the
Canada Maru was occupied by a British liner of around 10,000 tons, the
Protesilaus of the Blue Funnel Line. No activity was visible on her decks. Apparently the warning shots had carried the intended message. “I believe we ran one of this liner’s sister ships up onto the drydock in Prince Rupert,” Von Schönberg said. He nodded to the gunnery officer, who gave his orders, and
Nürnberg fired a broadside. Five shells struck where the high black sides of the hull met the waterline, raising tall waterspouts. Five seconds later Nürberg fired a second salvo. This pace of gunfire worked well, Von Schönberg thought. Brief flurries of rapid fire, then a lull to restock the ready ammunition and give the gun crews a bit of a rest.
Nürnberg fired a third salvo. Then she was past
Protesilaus, and came alongside the
RMS Empress of India, tied up parallel to the shore, then next, at a pier perpendicular to the shore, was moored
RMS Monteagle.
Nürnberg was also rushing headlong towards the trees of Stanley Park, and running out of sea room.
“Slow to 10 knots,” ordered Von Schönberg, “Mueller, can we go around that island?”
“No,” the pilot answered. “It is too shallow. Deadman’s Island is connected to the mainland at low tide.
“Alright Helm, hard to starboard, and take us around again.”
Nürnberg turned, and shifted fire to the
Monteagle. Beside this last liner, the conveyor gantry and masts of a coal loading barge reared out of the harbour, still in the process of sinking where she had been scuttled. The name
Melanope was still visible above water as her bow reared up. A salvo struck the
Monteagle amidships. By expediency of aim,
Nürnberg had not fired on
Empress of India on the way past. As the cruiser turned, Von Schönberg crossed the ship to the starboard bridge wing and regarded the
Empress. As a sailor, it caused him sorrow to sink any vessel, knowing what tribulations both ship and crew endured on the wide ocean, and how the fragile lives of mariners depended on the grace embodied in a trustworthy ship. But his heart was particularly aggrieved at the thought of sinking the elegant
Empress. Her hull was so white that she looked as to be carved from alabaster. The lines of her clipper bow, swept funnels, and gracefully curved stern epitomized the self-satisfied arrogance of the British Empire, and yet, she was a stunningly beautiful vessel.
Nürnberg’s stern guns fired on
Monteagle as she executed her turn. Short one barrel since number 7 gun on the port aft wing sponson was out of action.
“If the liners sink upright like that,” said Mueller the elder to Von Schönberg, “they will be salvaged and carrying troops to Europe in six months.”
Some fires were showing on
Protesialus, and she was beginning to settle by the stern. But large modern liners, with their hull compartmentalization, were slow to sink from gunfire. Mueller was right. Von Schönberg did not want to leave these ships sitting on the bottom, on an even keel, with the sea lapping 3 meters above the top of their Plimsol lines at low tide. He wanted to rip their sides out, so they would capsize, and be much more difficult or impossible to salvage.
“Sir!” called a lookout. “I have spotted another shell landing.” The sailor pointed east, and Von Schönberg just glimpsed the last of a water column falling back into the harbour, more than 1000 meters distant.
“What is that?” Von Schönberg asked his gunnery officer.
“I noticed it as well,” the officer replied. “Someone is shooting at us, very erratically. I would guess it is indirect fire, from howitzers or suchlike. A spotter could be adjusting their fire from an office building.” The officers regarded the countless windows of the downtown.
“They can’t hit us can they?” asked Von Schönberg.
“It is not impossible,” replied the gunnery officer, “… but almost. I would say they are harassing us. So we think twice about stopping to launch boats.”
“Still,” said Von Schönberg, “no time to dally. Prepare torpedoes!” Expending torpedoes was even worse, in Von Schönberg’s mind, than using up main battery shells.
Nürnberg only carried five torpedoes in total, and she had stuck one into the
Anadyr back in Prince Rupert harbour. “We have spent far too long in this port already.”
en.wikipedia.org
Passenger cargo ship Protesilaus 1910 Hawthorn Leslie Hebburn River Tyne
www.tynebuiltships.co.uk
