Bombardment of Papeete: Difference between revisions

Bombardment of Papeete
	Part of World War I
	; The freighter SS Walkure sunk at Papeete.
Date	22 September 1914
Location	off Papeete, French Polynesia, Pacific Ocean
Result	German victory
Belligerents
France	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Lieutenant Maxime Destremau	Admiral Maximilian von Spee
Strength
1 gunboat,; 1 freighter; 160 infantry,; shore batteries	2 armored cruisers
Casualties and losses
1 gunboat sunk,; 1 freighter sunk,; shore batteries destroyed,; Papeete severely damaged	none
	2 civillians killed

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Map of depicting various pacific islands and the dates at which Spee arrived at them. — *Scharnhost* and *Gniesenau'*s path across the Pacific.

The Bombardment of Papeete in French Polynesia by German warships took place on 22 September 1914, during World War I. The German armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau entered the port of Papeete on the island of Tahiti and sank the French gunboat Zélée and freighter Walkure before bombarding the town's fortifications. French land batteries and a gunboat resisted the German intrusion, but were greatly outgunned by their foes. The main German objective was to seize the coal piles stored on the island, but these were destroyed by the French at the start of the action.

Virtually no damage was received by the two German cruisers, but the French forces lost their gunboat. Papeete's civilian population suffered the greatest damage with several of the town's buildings destroyed and the town's economy severely disrupted. The engagement had little direct effect on the outcome of World War I, although it did help set the stage for the Battle of Coronel, fought by the German squadron later on. The battle also helped shape the later Battle of the Falklands where the German squadron was largely destroyed, as much of Scharnhorst's and Gneisenau's ammunition had been depleted by the actions fought at Papeete and Coronel before then.

Background

Word of war reached Admiral Maximilian von Spee of the German East Asia Squadron while at Ponape (17 July to 6 August). He concentrated his squadron at Pagan Island in the nearby Mariana Islands, and then steamed off into the Pacific with the Scharnhorst class armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, the Königsberg class light cruiser SMS Nürnberg, the auxiliary cruiser SMS Titania, and several colliers at his disposal. Nürnberg and Titania were sent to gather intelligence at Hawaii and raid the cable station at Fanning Island.^[1] Spee then learned that the Australians had captured German Samoa and sailed off in his flagship Scharnhorst along with Gneisenau to engage what Allied forces they could find there. Failing to catch the Samoa Expeditionary Force at Apia and having seen no action at all since leaving Pagan Island, the men of the Admiral von Spee's armored cruisers were anxious to meet the enemy in battle.^[2]

Von Spee decided to raid Papeete on his way to rendezvousing with the rest of his squadron at Easter Island. The French held over 5,000 tons of high-quality Cardiff coal at the port, and von Spee hoped to seize the coal piles to refuel and raise his mens' morale by destroying any shipping there. Before sailing to Papeete, Spee intended to coal at Suwarrow Atoll but was prevented by doing so there by foul weather.^[3] Instead, Spee decided to take Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and attempt to resupply at Bora Bora while Nürnberg and Titania were dispatched to Nukahiva to guard the fleet's colliers. The German admiral intended to keep his vessels' identities secret by disguising them as French ships, flying French flags, and only allowing French and English speaking members of his crew contact with the Frenchmen present there.^[4] Spee managed to replenish his food stores using gold seized by Titania and Nürnberg during their raid of Fanning, and also was able to discover the strength of the French military in the region as well as the positions of the coal piles at Papeete.^[5]

The French had no heavy defenses at Papeete but had been warned that von Spee's squadron might raid Tahiti and that a German squadron had been sighted off Samoa. Although Papeete was the capital of the French Settlements in Oceania, by 1914 it had become somewhat of a colonial backwater, lacking a wireless station and having a garrison of only 25 colonial infantry and 20 gendarmes.^[6] In order to bolster the towns defenses, Lieutenant Maxime Destremau, commander of the old wooden gunboat Zélée and also the ranking officer at Papeete, had his ship's stern 100-millimeter (3.9 in) gun and all of her 65-millimeter (2.6 in) guns and 37-millimeter (1.5 in) cannon removed from his vessel and placed ashore to be used in place of Papeete's antiquated land batteries.^[4] Several Ford trucks were turned into impromptu armored cars by mounting them with the Zélée's 37-millimeter (1.5 in) guns and 160 sailors and marines drilled in preparation to repel any German attempt at landing.^[7] The Zelee retained only her bow 100-millimeter (3.9 in) gun and ten men under the ship's second in command.^[8] In addition to the gunboat and harbor fortifications, the French also had at Papeete an unarmed German freighter, the Walkure, which had been captured by the Zélée at the start of the war.^[9] Despite the French preparations, the two German Scharnhorst class armored cruisers were more than a match for the forces Destremau commanded at Papeete. Both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau heavily outgunned the Zélée, each being armed with eight 21-centimeter (8.3 in) guns, six 15-centimeter (5.9 in) guns, eighteen 8.8-centimeter (3.5 in) guns, and four torpedo tubes. Von Spee's forces also outnumbered the French with over 1,500 sailors aboard their vessels, more than enough to form a landing party and overwhelm the forces Destremau had to oppose them.^[10]

Battle

At 0700 on 22 September 1914, two unidentified cruisers were sighted by the French entering the harbor of Papeete. The alarm was raised, the harbor's signal beacons destroyed, and three warning shots were fired by the French batteries to signal the approaching cruisers that they must identify themselves.^[6] The cruisers replied with a shot of their own and raised the German colors, signaling the town to surrender. The French refused the German demands, and von Spee's vessels began to shell the shore batteries and town from a distance of of 6,000 m (6,600 yd).^[11] The land batteries and the gunboat in the harbor attempted to return fire, but scored no hits on the armored cruisers. Having difficulty in discovering the exact position of the French batteries, the German cruisers soon turned their attention to the French shipping in the harbor.^[12]^[13]

The French commander, Destremeau, had ordered the coal piles burned at the start of the action and now smoke began billowing over the town. The Zélée and the Walkure were sighted and fired upon by the Germans. The French had begun to scuttle their vessels when the action had begun, but both were still afloat when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau began firing upon them and finished the two ships off. By now most of the town's inhabitants had fled and the town had caught fire from the German shelling, with two blocks of Papeete set alight.^[14] With the coal piles destroyed and the threat of mines in the harbor, von Spee saw no meaningful purpose in making a landing.^[15] Accordingly, the German admiral withdrew his ships from Papeete's harbor by 1100.^[14] After leaving Papeeete, the ships steamed out towards Nukuhiva to meet the Nürnberg, Titania, and colliers waiting there.^[12]

Aftermath

Picture of a tree sliced in two with a burned out building in the background. — Some of the damage done to the town of Papeete after it was bombarded by the Germans.

By the time von Spee withdrew his ships, large portions of the town had been destroyed. Two entire blocks of Papeete had burnt to the ground before the fires were finally put out. A copra store, a market, and several other buildings and residences were among those destroyed by the shellfire and resulting inferno. While the majority of Papeete's civilians fled the interior of the island as soon as the fighting began, a Japanese civilian and a Polynesian boy were both killed by German shellfire. Although the two French vessels in the harbor had been sunk, there were no military casualties on either side and the German vessels took no damage. Overall the bombardment was estimated in 1915 to have caused over 2 million francs worth of property damage, some of which was recouped through the seizure of a German store on the island.^[16] In addition to the seizure of their property, several local Germans were interned and forced to repair the damage their compatriots had caused. Perhaps the most lasting effect of the bombardment on the French was the dramatic fall of copra prices in the region, as local suppliers had previously sold a majority of their produce to German merchants in the area who were now interned.^[17] Further havoc and distress spread throughout the island eighteen days after Spee's squadron had left, when rumors started to spread that a second German bombardment was about to begin.^[16]

After withdrawing, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau rendezvoused with the Nürnberg and Titania at Nukuhiva where they resupplied and took shore leave before moving on to meet the rest of the squadron at Easter Island.^[18] Although the Germans had destroyed the shipping at Papeete and wreaked havoc in the town, they had been denied their primary objective of seizing the French coal piles and replenishing their own stocks. Von Spee's raid allowed the British admiralty to receive word on his position and heading, allowing them to inform Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock of the German intentions thus leading to the Battle of Coronel.^[19] Another effect was the reduction of ammunition available to the two German cruisers. The hundreds of shells fired by Spee's ships at Papeete were irreplaceable. The ammunition depleted as a result of the action at Papeete had some effect on the outcome of the German East Asia Squadron's failure to adequately defend itself at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, as the cruisers wasted their shells on harmless targets at Papeete rather than conserve them for their engagement with the British battlecruisers off the Falklands.^[20]

Citations

^ Halpern, p. 88
^ Strachan, p. 472
^ Corbett, p. 312
^ ^a ^b Halpern, p. 89
^ Hough, p. 47
^ ^a ^b Jose, p. 558
^ Gudmundsson, p. 2
^ "Defending Tahiti - September 1914" (Press release) (in French). Noëlle Destremau. 9 March 1999. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
^ American Forestry, p. 559
^ Gröner, p. 52
^ American Forestry, p. 553
^ ^a ^b Hough, p. 48
^ Jose, 559
^ ^a ^b American Forestry, p. 554
^ Gudmundsson, p. 3
^ ^a ^b American Forestry, p. 558
^ Davis, p. 1
^ Hough, p. 48
^ Hough, p. 71
^ Freeman, p. 274

References

"Bombardment of Papeete". American Forestry. XXI. Washington, D.C.: The American Forestry Association. 1915. Retrieved November 21, 2009. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Corbett, Sir Julian S. (1920). Naval Operations Volume One. New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Davis, W. M. (1918). "The Reef-Encircled Islands of the Pacific". The Journal of Geography. XVII. Appleton, Wisconsin: The Post Publishing Co. Retrieved November 22, 2009. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Freeman, Lewis R. (1918). "The Story of the Cornwall". The Worlds Work. XXXVI. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. Retrieved November 21, 2009. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Gröner, Erich (1990). German Warships 1815 - 1945 Volume One: Major Surface Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870217909. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Gudmundsson, Bruce I. (2004). On Armor. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0275950190. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Halpern, Paul G. (1995). A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557503524. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Hough, Richard (2003). Falklands 1914: The Pursuit of Admiral Von Spee. Penzance, Cornwall: Periscope Publishing Ltd. ISBN 190438112X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Jose, Arthur (1941). Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 - Volume IX. Sydney: Angus & Robertson Ltd. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Strachan, Hew (2001). The First World War: To Arms. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198208774.

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 [[File:SpeeMap.jpg|thumb|240px|right|''Scharnhost'' and ''Gniesenau'''s path across the Pacific.|alt=Map of depicting various pacific islands and the dates at which Spee arrived at them.]]
-The '''Bombardment of Papeete''' in [[French Polynesia]] by German warships took place on 22 September 1914. The [[German Empire|German]] [[armored cruiser]]s [[SMS Scharnhorst|''Scharnhorst'']] and [[SMS Gneisenau|''Gneisenau'']] entered the port of [[Papeete]] on the island of [[Tahiti]] and sank the French gunboat [[French gunboat Zélée|''Zélée'']] and freighter ''Walkure'' before bombarding the town's fortifications. [[France|French]] land batteries and a gunboat resisted the German intrusion, but were greatly outgunned by their foes. The main German objective was to seize the coal piles stored on the island, but these were destroyed by the French at the start of the action.
+The '''Bombardment of Papeete''' in [[French Polynesia]] by German warships took place on 22 September 1914, during [[World War I]]. The [[German Empire|German]] [[armored cruiser]]s [[SMS Scharnhorst|''Scharnhorst'']] and [[SMS Gneisenau|''Gneisenau'']] entered the port of [[Papeete]] on the island of [[Tahiti]] and sank the French gunboat [[French gunboat Zélée|''Zélée'']] and freighter ''Walkure'' before bombarding the town's fortifications. [[France|French]] land batteries and a gunboat resisted the German intrusion, but were greatly outgunned by their foes. The main German objective was to seize the coal piles stored on the island, but these were destroyed by the French at the start of the action.
-Virtually no damage was received by the two German cruisers, but the French forces lost their gunboat. Papeete's civilian population suffered the greatest damage with several of the town's buildings destroyed and the town's economy severely disrupted. The engagement had little direct effect on the outcome of [[World War I]], although it did help set the stage for the [[Battle of Coronel]], fought by the German squadron later on. The battle also helped shape the later [[Battle of the Falklands]] where the German squadron was largely destroyed, as much of  ''Scharnhorst''{{'}}s and ''Gneisenau''{{'}}s ammunition had been depleted by the actions fought at Papeete and Coronel before then.
+Virtually no damage was received by the two German cruisers, but the French forces lost their gunboat. Papeete's civilian population suffered the greatest damage with several of the town's buildings destroyed and the town's economy severely disrupted. The engagement had little direct effect on the outcome of World War I, although it did help set the stage for the [[Battle of Coronel]], fought by the German squadron later on. The battle also helped shape the later [[Battle of the Falklands]] where the German squadron was largely destroyed, as much of  ''Scharnhorst''{{'}}s and ''Gneisenau''{{'}}s ammunition had been depleted by the actions fought at Papeete and Coronel before then.
 ==Background==
-When word of war reached Admiral [[Maximilian von Spee]] of the [[German East Asia Squadron]] while at [[Pohnpei|Ponape]], he left for [[Pagan Island]] in the Mariana Islands to concentrate his squadron and then steamed off into the Pacific with the [[Scharnhorst class armored cruiser]]s [[SMS Scharnhorst|SMS ''Scharnhorst'']] and [[SMS Gneisenau|SMS ''Gneisenau'']], the [[Königsberg class cruiser (1905)|Königsberg class]] [[light cruiser]] ''[[SMS Nürnberg (1906)|SMS Nürnberg]]'', the [[auxiliary cruiser]] ''[[SMS Titania]]'', and several [[Collier (ship type)|collier]]s at his disposal. ''Nürnberg'' and ''Titania'' were sent to gather intelligence at [[Hawaii]] and [[Bombardment of Fanning|raid the cable station at Fanning Island]].<ref>Halpern, p. 88</ref> Spee then learned that the Australians had [[Occupation of German Samoa|captured German Samoa]] and sailed off in his flagship ''Scharnhorst'' along with ''Gneisenau'' to engage what Allied forces they could find there. Failing to catch the [[Samoa Expeditionary Force]] at [[Apia]] and having seen no action at all since leaving Pagan Island, the men of the Admiral von Spee's armored cruisers were anxious to meet the enemy in battle.<ref>Strachan, p. 472</ref>
+Word of war reached Admiral [[Maximilian von Spee]] of the [[German East Asia Squadron]] while at [[Pohnpei|Ponape]] (17 July to 6 August). He concentrated his squadron at [[Pagan Island]] in the nearby Mariana Islands, and then steamed off into the Pacific with the [[Scharnhorst class armored cruiser]]s [[SMS Scharnhorst|SMS ''Scharnhorst'']] and [[SMS Gneisenau|SMS ''Gneisenau'']], the [[Königsberg class cruiser (1905)|Königsberg class]] [[light cruiser]] ''[[SMS Nürnberg (1906)|SMS Nürnberg]]'', the [[auxiliary cruiser]] ''[[SMS Titania]]'', and several [[Collier (ship type)|collier]]s at his disposal. ''Nürnberg'' and ''Titania'' were sent to gather intelligence at [[Hawaii]] and [[Bombardment of Fanning|raid the cable station at Fanning Island]].<ref>Halpern, p. 88</ref> Spee then learned that the Australians had [[Occupation of German Samoa|captured German Samoa]] and sailed off in his flagship ''Scharnhorst'' along with ''Gneisenau'' to engage what Allied forces they could find there. Failing to catch the [[Samoa Expeditionary Force]] at [[Apia]] and having seen no action at all since leaving Pagan Island, the men of the Admiral von Spee's armored cruisers were anxious to meet the enemy in battle.<ref>Strachan, p. 472</ref>
 Von Spee decided to raid Papeete on his way to rendezvousing with the rest of his squadron at [[Easter Island]]. The French held over 5,000 tons of high-quality Cardiff [[coal]] at the port, and von Spee hoped to seize the coal piles to refuel and raise his mens' morale by destroying any shipping there. Before sailing to Papeete, Spee intended to coal at [[Suwarrow Atoll]] but was prevented by doing so there by foul weather.<ref>Corbett, p. 312</ref> Instead, Spee decided to take ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' and attempt to resupply at [[Bora Bora]] while ''Nürnberg'' and ''Titania'' were dispatched to [[Nukahiva]] to guard the fleet's colliers. The German admiral intended to keep his vessels' identities secret by disguising them as French ships, flying French flags, and only allowing French and English speaking members of his crew contact with the Frenchmen present there.<ref name="Halpern 89">Halpern, p. 89</ref> Spee managed to replenish his food stores using gold seized by ''Titania'' and ''Nürnberg'' during their raid of Fanning, and also was able to discover the strength of the French military in the region as well as the positions of the coal piles at Papeete.<ref>Hough, p. 47</ref>