Aug 21, 1715
SMS Nürnberg, Juan de Fuca Strait.
“Warship masts, dead ahead, range 20 miles!” called
Leipzig’s lookout. “Definitely masts of a cruiser!”
Von Schönberg stiffened. He had some decisions to make quickly.
Whose cruiser was this? American? Japanese? British? If it was American, there was no problem. The American warships still matching his course and speed 5 miles to the south and escorting him from the Strait of Georgia, were not firing on him, so he had no expectation that a fresh American warship would behave any differently.
A Japanese warship, and that would most likely be the
Izumo, would theoretically be constrained from hostilities until the declaration of war tomorrow night. But the extent of damage that his squadron had just inflicted on Japan’s soon-to-be ally might push an ambitious captain to take decisive unilateral action. Von Schönberg knew
Izumo’s captain Moriyama Keizaboro. He was a consummate warrior. Von Schönberg imagined for a moment what he might do in Moriyama’s situation, and decided that combat would be likely if this newly arrived cruiser was flying the Rising Sun.
A British cruiser, of course, would mean another battle within the hour. Any cruiser the British brought would likely be superior to
Leipzig.
“I am calling my crew back aboard!” Haun yelled. “Karl?”
Von Schönberg chose to ignore the over-familiar use of his first name. But Haun was right, it was time for decisive action. If this new cruiser proves to be hostile, could he distract the enemy with
Nürnberg, in order to give Leipzig time to escape? Thus sacrificing
Nürnberg? No, he could not do that to his men. His only choice was to move his crew to Leipzig, and scuttle
Nürnberg. Did he have enough time to pass over the rest of
Nürnberg’s ammunition? He watched
Leipzig’s men emerge from below and dash back across to their own ship. His crew could fill out
Leipzig’s gun and machinery crews. Heading into battle against a superior cruiser would be a sad end to this voyage, but he had to admit his luck had been almost unbelievable these last few weeks. And perhaps
Leipzig could shoot its way past a small British cruiser and make it to the Pacific. He believed the German gun crews of the East Asiatic Squadron to be superior to any they might encounter.
His only other option would be to take
Leipzig and run east again and north, out through the Inside Passage and all the way around Vancouver Island. That would be 280 nautical miles of high-speed steaming through narrow passages. And Leipzig had been running her engines constantly at near full speed for almost 24 hours already. Triple expansion engines did not like to be treated that way. If the hostile cruiser did not run them down, the Canadians would likely scuttle hulks ahead of them in the narrowest part of the Passage, or lay a barrage of log booms. No, it was better to fight, and trust in God. He opened his mouth to give the order to abandon
Nürnberg.
“Warship has one lattice mast!” yelled Leipzig’s lookout. “One military mast and one lattice mast.”
Von Schönberg let his pent-up breath escape with relief. Only one navy in the world used those strange lattice masts, the United States Navy. He reassessed the situation. The planks were brought back aboard and
Leipzig cast off.
“I want those pumps back when you are done with them!” yelled Haun, and saluted. Leipzig pulled ahead into lead position again.
The engineering officer came to report to Von Schönberg. “Sir, those extra men from
Leipzig made a real difference while they were over here, patching leaks. The extra pumping capacity is being used in the torpedo compartment and boiler room 2. The water has stopped rising, perhaps it is even going down. We jammed a mass of cargo netting and mess tables and whatnot into the space between the disabled boilers and the torpedo damage in compartments 8 and 9. This has slowed the ingress of seawater, and should relieve the pressure at speed. I believe we will be able to come up to twelve knots again. I have the men on damage control still chasing down shell and splinter holes. Every little hole we plug helps.” The engineering officer paused. “How long do we need to keep the ship afloat sir?
“If you can give me until tomorrow morning, lieutenant,” said Von Schönberg, “I would be deeply grateful. Any other news?”
“The drinking water tanks under the torpedo deck are contaminated. Most of the food supplies have been destroyed along with the bakery and the galley. There is a bit of bread, some sausage, and raw carrots. This has been distributed to men at their stations. We have re-established some electrical power, enough to run lighting and the ammunition hoists, as you saw. The stokers are giving a superhuman performance sir, they really are.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Signal
Leipzig, and tell her to keep trying to reach
Princess Charlotte,” he ordered the sailor with the semaphore flags. “And have her also contact
Galiano. We should be at her position by nightfall.” This talk of food reminded him that he had not eaten since breakfast.
Von Schönberg wanted to send
Leipzig ahead to meet the auxiliaries, but he also wanted to have her on hand in case
Nürnberg’s situation suddenly deteriorated and he had to abandon ship. He decided to keep her close for now, and let Haun use the slack time to perform damage control and maintenance.
Nürnberg came up to 12 knots, and reports from below were optimistic, the flooding did not seem to be increasing.
At 1730 hours, Nürnberg passed by the logging camp at River Jordan. Sixteen hours before
Nürnberg had fired the opening shots of this foray, sinking a hapless Canadian patrol vessel on this very spot. “My God, it has been a long day,” Von Schönberg said to himself.
The US Navy cruiser approaching from the Pacific was now only 5000 meters to the west of the Germans. This new warship slowed, then came about to join the rest of the neutrality patrol shadowing his command from the American side of the line. She had 4 funnels, and looked to be at least as big as Admiral Graf Von Spee’s
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau. Von Schönberg had lost all of his ship recognition manuals when his chartroom burned out, but this American giant looked to be of the same class as the
USS California, of the International Squadron off Mexico. First
Nürnberg and then
Leipzig had been a part of that squadron, in what seemed like an age ago. That would make the American a
Pennsylvania class cruiser. She looked to be at least 20 meters longer than the other 4 stack American cruiser, and similarly armed with a forest of gun barrels. As the American ships maneuvered into position Von Schönberg read
South Dakota on the stern of the bigger cruiser, and
Milwaukee on the smaller. A pair of destroyers accompanied the cruisers, but he could not read their names.
And so the time passed. The Canadian wilderness rolled by to starboard, and the American mountains of the Olympic peninsula defined the horizon to port. Von Schönberg even took a nap for an hour, stretched out in a hammock in a relatively undamaged part of the forward crew accommodations. The tap-tap-tapping of damage control parties plugging gaps intruded even in his dreamless sleep. He woke with a start, then felt that the ship was moving in a familiar way, and settled into wakefulness again. His first realization was that he was ravenous, His immediate desire was to sleep for another 24 hours, but instead he climbed the ladder to the conning tower, feeling the deck lifting more from swells as
Nürnberg drew closer to the open ocean.
“How is the ship holding up?” Von Schönberg asked the officer of the watch.
“We are pitching and rolling more, now that we are entering the ocean swells, sir,” the officer replied. “Putting more of the hull patches underwater. The damage control parties, that is everyone not on the bridge or running the machinery, are making rounds and plugging up anything that comes loose. So far the pumps are keeping up, with all running at full capacity. We are fortunate that the torpedo damage is on the starboard side, facing away from the open sea.”
The conning tower chronometer read 1845 hours. The shore on the Canadian side was just more primeval forest, with a lighthouse on a rocky headland five miles to the west. All was lit golden by the low angle of the sun. To the south, just to
Nürnberg’s port beam, the Olympic Peninsula ended abruptly at Cape Flattery in a series of cliffs and wave-swept black rock spires, and then a final foreboding steep-sided islet, topped with another lighthouse. After a further 15 minutes, their American escort slowed and turned. The Germans had passed the imaginary line where the American three-mile territorial limit met that of Canada. Now to
Nürnberg’s port was the open Pacific, and international waters. The United States Navy ships stayed in their own waters. The pair of destroyers turned and steamed back east up the Strait, but the two cruisers remained, and entered into a slow north-south circuit, shrinking slowly into the distance astern.
“We have spotted smoke to the west sir,” the officer of the watch informed Von Schönberg. “We believe it to be from our auxiliary fleet. If true, the smoke is right where we would expect it to be.” Leipzig confirmed wireless contact with the auxiliaries , reporting to
Nürnberg by Morse light. Another half hour passed, and the smoke resolved itself as 3 sets of masts, and then 3 ships hulls appeared over the horizon: a steam freighter, a tanker, and a giant two funnelled liner with the profile of
RMS Niagara.
USS South Dakota
Cape Flattery
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