MENACE IN THE PACIFIC REMOVED

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2330, 11 December 1914, Page 5

MENACE IN THE PACIFIC REMOVED

; CAREER OF THE GERMAN RAIDERS. The British naval victory off the Falkland Islands has cleared the Pacific of a dangerous menace to the peace of the British and I 1 retick dominions, as well as made a clean sweep of the great trade routes to. the Atlantic. J-be Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with their consorts the Leipzig, Dresden, ana Nurnberg, made up a small but rery poworful and effective fleet when assembled for action, but it was not until comparatively recently that the units foregathered ill the South Pacific. Previously they had raided w. 'pairs, or singly, and always more or loss in oloso touch with the flagship Scharnhorst. Latterly, the activity of the Allies' warships, which had previously been restricted by the very necessary duty of convoying the Expeditionary troopships to Samoa and to Egypt, and the systematic destruction of the powerful German wireless stations which dotted the Pacific, had compelled the uer» mans to seek safety in.numbers, and the fleet assembled in the South J-acmc, close to the neutral waters of the Chilean Republics and ill close touch with secret wireless stations which had been covortly established along the boutn American coast as bureaux of illicit information. . . It was the existence of these intelligence stations that resulted in the disaster to the British cruising fleet off Valparaiso, when the armoured cruiser Good Hope and tho light cruiser Monmouth were sunk after a gallant light against overwhelming odds, the light cruiser Glasgow (damaged) and the armed liner Otranto escaping in the darkness to a neutral port. _ Before that, the Scharnhorst and Gnoisenau had barely, justified their existence, for they had merely prowled about the Pacific, shelled Papeete, and sunk an old French gunboat there; raised a mild scare at Samoa shortly after the New Zealand occupation, and kept the Pacific islands m ,a state of tension. , it is known that at one time they were not very far off our own shores. ' The Nurnberg is besi remembored for her visit to the cable station at Fanning Island, a call which resulted in a brief interruption to the Pacifio cable service, and considerable damage to the cable company's property. The Leipzig, Dresden, and Bremen have operated chiefly in the Eastern Pacific, waylaying tramps and cargo-passenger steamers. , DESCRIPTION OF THE GERMAN FLEET. The armored cruisers ■ Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were Bister ships of 11,400 tons, launched in 1906, powerfully engined, with a trial speed of twenty-three knots. For vessels of their olass, they were equipped with an unusually heavy armament. Each carried oight 8.2 in., six 5.9 in., ana eighteen 21-pounder guns, with four torpedo tubes. ' A twin turret at each end of the Bhip carried half the big guns, the others being singly placed in casements ou tho broadsides. They were armoured with 6in. steel on .the waterline and vital parts, and carried'a maximum of 2000 tons of coal. Each vessel had about 765 men on- board. The Scharnhorst was the flagship of the German China Squadron, and flew tho pennant of Vice-Admiral Count'von Spee. The Leipzig was a protected cruiser of 8200 tons, twenty-two knots speed, completed in 1906. ' Her armament consisted of ten 4.lin. guns, and she carried 303 officers and / men. The Dresden, a sister ship to thefamouß Emden, was of 3540 tons, with a speed in good weather _of twenty-four knots, and armed, like many other German light oruisers, with ten 4.lin. guns. Her complement is 361. Tho Nurnberg is a somewhat similar vessel, of 3350 tons, armed with ten 4.lin. guns, and with a speed of nearly twenty-five knots. Sho and the Dresden were comploted in 1908.