SMS Mowe

History

The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian nationalists in the city of Sarajevo in 1914, after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, prompted all concerned countries to respect each other in their alliance. Germany then invaded Belgium (which triggered Britain's declaration of war on Germany), France, and Russia in turn. The "Allied Powers" included Russia and the Japanese Empire to the east, and France, Great Britain, Belgium, Montenegro and Serbia to the west. These would face the "central powers" of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Before it was all over, at least 22 countries entered the warthe United States joined in 1917.

The First World War was fought on a variety of terrains, including the ocean. Numerous new weapon designs and concepts were developed during the naval battle - the British Navy developed the revolutionary "full gun" battleship HMS Dreadnought, which changed the course of naval warfare forever.

Both the British and German navies have built innovative submarines - the British concept is an "anti-submarine" submarine called the British R-class, while the Germans have developed trade-oriented Deutschland-class submarines, each 31?????foot long , there are two large cargo holds that can hold 700 tons of cargo. The British began to arm passenger and merchant ships in self-defense, while the Germans responded by arming existing freighters to attack Allied shipping.

Probably the most successful of the German attackers was SMS Mowe. She was originally built in 1914 as the freighter "Pungo" to transport fruit from the German colonies to Germany. At the outbreak of the war, she was claimed by the German Navy as a minelayer, and in late 1915 was armed by the German Navy and disguised as a neutral cargo ship in Swedish colors. Her camouflage allows her to traverse Atlantic waters and the North Sea with relative impunity, only to engage targets of opportunity, who are either captured or pillaged and sunk. The Germans resorted to camouflage to break through the British naval blockade of German ports, which restricted the population's food supply -- thereby fueling the domestic war effort.

The Germans hoped to force the British fleet to abandon the blockade and use warships to hunt down German invaders by arming a few cheap merchant ships and using them to steal the Allied shipping lanes. The lack of suitable blockade ships would eventually open up German ports and shipping routes, and Germany would be in a better position if the Allies were forced to make peace.

SMS Mowe (translated as "The Seagull") enforces a British naval blockade and erupts to challenge the Allied merchant fleet. Although she lacked the armor protection of a conventional naval cruiser, her weapons were carefully concealed behind false bulkheads.

Her armament consisted of 4 x 15.0 cm (150 mm) SK L/45 (5.9 in) 45 caliber guns, each with a rate of fire of 7 rounds per minute at 13,500 m (14,800 yd). Its high-explosive rounds weigh 100 pounds each, half the weight of explosives. The secondary gun is a 1 x 105 mm (10.5 cm) SK L/40 (4.1 in), forward-positioned, smaller-caliber gun designed as a naval rapid-fire weapon for warning fire at intended boarding targets.

For long-range combat against surface ships, Morway was equipped with 2 x 503mm torpedo tubes and carried 500 mines.

The SMS Mowe was designed with a barrel length of 405 feet, 8 inches (123.7 m) and a beam of 47 feet, 4 inches (14.4 m) and a draft of 23 feet, 6 inches (7, 2m) up. Her propulsion required five boilers to burn coal to generate the necessary steam for her 3-cylinder, triple-translation engine drive shaft. All told, the configuration achieves 3,200 horsepower, which enables her to reach 13 knots (14.9 mph) in ideal conditions and an operating range of up to 8,700 nautical miles (12 knots). Mainly relying on her disguise to survive, speed is not a key inherent attribute of her design - she needs to appear in the form of a neutral freighter, carrying supplies.

The SMS Mowe displaces 9,800 tons and is staffed by 235 officers and seamen.

On 29 December 1915, SMS Mowe left Wilhelmshaven to lay a naval minefield at Pentland Firth near the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. Morway's camouflage proved clever, as the British Navy was not used to keeping an eye out for trade robbers at this stage of the war.

British ships passing the Mowe did not salute them, believing the Swedish-coloured freighter was bound for a British port. The weather was bad and visibility was poor, though this overshadowed Mowway's minelaying operation, which resulted in hundreds of mines being laid (one of her mines would eventually capture the ex-dreadnought Edward VI's ex-dreadnought).

SMS Mowe then received her order to begin a "cruiser war" and was transferred to the Atlantic channel. These lanes are the lifeblood of Britain and continental Europe, extending all the way to South America. On January 11, 1916, two ships were found, the German flag replaced the Swedish flag, and both ships fired warning shots. The first steamship was thoroughly searched before sinking, while the second was claimed as a prize that her coal would be used to fuel the German ships. The enemy crew was captured.

On January 16, 1916, the Morway encountered a lightly armed British merchant ship, causing the British merchant ship to sink. Within three months, the Morway sank 19 ships, two captured and one supplied supplies for more than 500 Allied prisoners.

On April 4, 1916, the Mowe returned to Germany and her first voyage proved to be a resounding success.

SMS Mowe was then sent to dry dock for repairs for two months. The British Admiralty was now aware of SMS Mowe, so the Germans struggled to maintain their advantage, forcing some structural changes. It has also been given a new company name - SMS Vineta.

SMS Vineta then made a series of short voyages around Norway in the summer of 1916. Only one ship was hijacked in three months, and the Vineta was ordered back to port on 24 August 1916 for overhaul.

SMS Vineta changed its name to SMS Mowe before embarking on her second Atlantic voyage. Morvey received a new crew and supplies and entered the Atlantic Ocean on November 23, 1916. Her first victim was on December 6, 1916, when she encountered the steamship SS Mount Temple. The cargo included war supplies and 700 war horses - the ship sank after the crew was evacuated.

Six days later, on December 12, SS Georgic was found and 1,200 warhorses were captured as cargo for the Western Front. So the ship and its live cargo were sent to the bottom.

The Royal Navy mobilized several destroyers specifically to hunt Morvey, but none of them were successful. The SS Yarrowdale was found and seized and sent to Germany as a prize, and the ship was then rebuilt as an auxiliary cruiser with 5 x 150mm deck guns and 4 x 88mm anti-aircraft guns and twin torpedo tubes. On January 9, 1917, the captured freighter Yarrowdale was commissioned into service with the German Navy as auxiliary cruiser SMS Leopard. Mowe captured the SS Saint Theodore steamship the German Navy had converted into a miner and armed it as best he could under their new name Geier.

The Geier, consisting of a small crew of the Mowe, operated as the attacker for six weeks and sank two ships.

On March 10, SMS Mowe engaged and damaged a New Zealand merchant vessel, forcing the attackers to return to Germany for repairs. Mo Wei once again successfully broke through the British blockade, and on the same day, the auxiliary cruiser Short Leopard embarked on her first and only raid voyage. The Leopard, disguised as the Norwegian freighter Rena, sank after a heavy exchange of fire with the same British force that had missed Mowe earlier. Morvey arrived safely in port on March 22, 1917.

In just four months, Morway claimed to own 28 shipsone was captured and released, another was taken as trophies, and the remaining 26 were sunk.

The staff of SMS Mowe received a heroic welcome in Germany and toured several cities for promotional purposes. However, Morwey's days as a merchant hunter were over, as German naval authorities believed the British would now target her at all costs, tied to her statistic of sinking 45 ships.

So Mowe's next task involves tendering a submarine to be converted into a submarine stationed in the Baltic Sea. In 1918, she changed her name to Ostsee and was classified as an auxiliary miner. By this time, the war situation in Germany had deteriorated, and an armistice was signed in November, ending World War I. Since the German Empire was largely responsible for the war, the SMS Morwey was handed over to the British as indemnity after the Treaty of Versailles and used as the freighter Greenbrier.

In 1933 the Greenbrier was purchased by a German shipping company as the freighter "SS Oldenburg". As the continent returned to war in World War II, she was commissioned by the German Navy as a freighter to transport supplies and equipment between German ports and occupied Norway.

On April 7, 1945, the SS Oldenburg was attacked and sunk by British fighter jets off the coast of Norway - thus ending SMS Mowe's long tenure.

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