THE CRUISER DRESDEN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1375, 18 March 1915, Page 4

THE CRUISER DRESDEN.

SUN A A ‘ L

The British Admiralty reports that on Sunday morning the cruisers Glasgow, Grama and Kent caught the German cruiser Dresden off Juan Fernandez, off Valparaiso. Alter five minutes the Dresden hauled down her colours, and displayed the white flag. She was much damaged and on fire. Finally, her magazine exploded. She then sank. The members of the crew were saved.

The light cruiser Dresden was a sister ship of the famous Ecnden. Sue was built in 1907-9, and was ol 3544 tons displacement, with a speed of about 25 knots at her best. The armament consisted of ten 4.1 inch guns, a dozen small and machine guns, and two torpedo tubes. The steaming radius of this type of cruiser, at low speed, is about 6000 miles. Sue cardes a complement of about 350 officers and men. The Dresden has been at large since the beginning of the war, and played a prominent- part in creating such uneasiness as existed for the safety of shipping, though she never approached her sister, the Emden, in real effectiveness as a raider. She ultimately joined Admiral von Spec’s squadron, which defeated the British cruiser squadron under Admiral Cradock, and afterwards sailed round Cape Horn to the Falkland Islands. Here the Dresden was in serious danger of being destroyed by Admiral Slurdee's squadron, in company with the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig andNurnberg, but she and the merchant cruiser Priuz Eitel Friedrich, now in the American port of Newport, escaped. Since then the Dresden’s whereabouts has been a mystery, for although she was reported soon after the Falkland Islands battle to have gone into some South American ports, there was no confirmatory information.