SMS Emden 1914
Marker: recorded wreck position (First World War).
Key facts
| Name | SMS Emden | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1914 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | First World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | light cruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | German Reich | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Imperial German Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War I, Battle of Cocos | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | INDIAN OCEAN | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 33 km from land |
| Position | -11.8333, 96.8167 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
SMS Emden ("His Majesty's Ship Emden") was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig in 1906. The hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers, Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.
Emden spent the majority of her career overseas in the East Asia Squadron, based in Qingdao, in the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China. In 1913, Karl von Müller took command of the ship. At the outbreak of World War I, Emden captured a Russian steamer and converted her into the commerce raider Cormoran. Emden rejoined the East Asia Squadron, then was detached for independent raiding in the Indian Ocean. The cruiser spent nearly two months operating in the region, and captured nearly two dozen ships. On 28 October 1914, Emden launched a surprise attack on Penang; in the resulting Battle of Penang, she sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet.
Müller then took Emden to raid the Cocos Islands, where he landed a contingent of sailors to destroy British facilities.
Location
- Recorded position: -11.8333, 96.8167 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: INDIAN OCEAN
- Nearest coast: Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SMS Emden (revision 1374716376), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Other wrecks of the World War I
- HMS Aboukir 1914
- HMS Bulwark 1914
- HMS Cressy 1914
- HMS Good Hope 1914
- HMS Hawke 1914
- HMS Niger 1914
- HMS Pathfinder 1914
- SM U-11 1914
- SM U-13 1914
- SMS Gneisenau 1914
All 163 wrecks of the World War I →
Browse more: Asia wrecks · INDIAN OCEAN · First World War