12th October 1914, IJN Karuma near Easter Island.
The two ships had gone to action stations early, the young sailor had been in his lookout post straddling the main top yard for over an hour, the sky was progressively lightening and now it was nautical twilight. There was a midshipman beside him, he was clutching a pair of heavy night glasses and trying hard to focus on the horizon, a task made more difficult by the swell. The ships were travelling at 18 knots above their most efficient speed but one timed to deliver them to Easter Island as dawn broke over the island.
The ships crews knew they would be in for a fight, the admiral had issued his orders and his ships and men were ready to carry them out. As the light improved, the sailor spotted a whale spouting in the distance to the east, he was barely able to restrain himself from shouting the bearing to it down the voice tube. He elected not to point it out to the midshipman either, that young man was full of his own importance and distracting him with trivialities at a time like this could only be to his detriment.
He continued to scan the ocean to the northeast, the midshipman reported the sighting of land and was greeted with a curt “Hai” by the Captain. Nothing was visible against the loom of the land yet the bulk of an old volcano shading the land against the rising sun, but the ships were moving at a steady pace, the stokers no doubt already sweating as the boilers built increased pressure.
The lookout stiffened, reaching over he flipped the cover off the voice tube and said “deck there, three ships on the starboard bow”, the midshipman glared at him for his breach of protocol. The Midshipman should have spotted them with his heavy glasses first, but the sailor had spent many more days spotting aloft, he knew how to really look. The captain was more interested now, asking him “type, range”, the midshipman pushed him out of the way, “two armoured cruisers one light cruiser, multiple colliers, 15000 yards”, the voice tube could also be heard from the spotting position as well, allowing them to direct their more powerful glasses onto the indicated position.
The well-trained crews were rapidly plotting the position of the ships, they had been identified as the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhurst and Gneisenau and the light cruiser SMS Nurnberg. Once the German ships were spotted Vice Admiral Yamaya issued his final prebattle orders. The squadron signals officer was soon issuing commands to his crews as the admiral’s plan was put into play. Bright signal flags raced aloft, and signal lamps blinked, IJN Tsukuba was to hold station to port of IJN Karuma and she was to target the more distant armoured cruiser tentatively identified as SMS Gneisenau with both her 12” guns and when in range with her 6” guns as well. Whilst SMS Scharnhorst would be the target of Karuma’s 12” guns and the light cruiser the target of the 8 8” guns. The range to the German ships was closing rapidly and the dawn approach from an unexpected direction placed the Japanese ships in a near perfect position. The Germans were trapped at anchor against a rocky shore, likely with only a harbour watch on duty, it would take precious time to call the ships to action stations and soon Japanese shells would be raining down on them.
The radio crew, whose sterling work had given Admiral Yamaya every advantage, heard another radio call, adjusting their receivers they were able to plot its bearing. It was on the assumed course of the German Light Cruiser whose signalling had precipitated the days events. She had suddenly started signalling again, quickly, to the experienced ears of the watch standers, her dots and dashes had a frantic even panicked air. Clearly IJN Asama had either engaged the German ship or at least been spotted, within moments there was a change in the ships off easter island, frenzied activity was visible from the spotting towers powerful telescopes as the German crews responded to the radio signal. The range had closed to 14000 yards now, Admiral Yamaya ordered a turn to port, reducing the rate of closure and allowing the after turrets to bear on the target.
The Japanese ships accelerated to 20 knots, not quite full speed but still fast both ships shuddering, towering columns of black smoke belching from their funnels as they sought to close the range and prevent escape. The big guns swung to starboard, the angle hadn’t closed enough for the aft pair of 12” guns to bear, their turret was swung round but until the range closed a little more it would be masked by the superstructure. Despite this Admiral Yamaya felt that the advantage of surprise would soon be lost if he gave the Germans any further time to come to action stations. His command “you may open fire Captain” was given in as normal tone as one would expect of any officer descended from samurai, little different that the tone with which he requested his tea be refreshed.
The great 12” guns roared, the range short, the enemy unmoving, if this had been an exercise, the inspectorate responsible for training would have ruled it utterly unrealistic. Despite all the advantages held by the Japanese gunners the first rounds fired by Karuma missed, plunging into the sea just beyond her SMS Scharnhorst. To worsen the captain’s shame, IJN Tsukuba fired almost immediately after Karuma, a least one of his shells hit the more distant armoured cruiser, a bright gout of flame signalling success. Soon both ships were firing as quickly as they could, both now hitting with some regularity, the smaller 8” guns on Karuma also joined the fray, in a fine display of gunnery her first salvo managed to straddle the light cruiser with two shells hitting her hard.
The uneven fight continued for a few minutes, eventually several German guns managed to respond, several lucky and or exceptionally brave gunners even managed to hit the Japanese armoured cruisers, but in every case bar one the Japanese Ships shrugged off the hits without issue. The sole victim was the admiral’s barge, she was struck by a 10.5cm shell fired by the light cruiser, striking the barge but failing to penetrate Karuma’s deck it detonated blowing the barge to splinters. But soon even that defiance was silenced, the Japanese ships kept firing, methodically demolishing their adversaries. Both Scharnhorst and Nurnberg were sinking their crews spilling overboard as they sought to avoid drowning, Gneisenau’s captain was apparently unwilling to sacrifice more of his men, instead he ordered her colours lowered signalling her surrender. This caused consternation aboard the Japanese Cruisers they had not expected surrender, but swiftly enough Japanese boats were pulling to the German Cruiser, to accept her surrender. Her Captain and first Lieutenant were dead, the gunnery lieutenant, the sole unwounded officer had ordered his men to lay down their arms and cease fighting. The lieutenant his nerves wrecked by the sudden violence, had failed to order the engineers to open the sea cocks, so the ship remained afloat, listing and down at the bow but afloat. Her diminished crew soon under the guard of surprised Japanese Sailors, the Japanese were surprisingly solicitous of the welfare of the German Sailors, their orders to avoid mistreating their prisoners were strict. With the ship under Japanese control, the Japanese sailors and German crew worked quickly to put out the fires and rig pumps, the crew working with a will, their ships and rafts had been smashed and if the ship foundered most would surely drown. Admiral Yamaya issued orders for a prize crew to be organised and the ship surveyed to see if it was fit to sail. He also ordered more boats to go to the aid of the survivors of the other German ships, sadly few had made it out, but again the Japanese sailors risked their own lives to pluck as many men from the sea as they could.
The colliers shocked by the sudden outburst of violence did little, one braver or more foolish captain attempted to raise steam to flee but judging by the plume of steam thought better of it and doused its boiler when a 6” shell from Tsukuba’s secondary gun was fired across her bows as a warning.
The Japanese signallers continued exchanging messages by light, flag and now that action had been joined radio, with Asuma telling of the stiff fight being put up by her target. Asuma’s fight was more even, she had come up on Dresden in the dark at less than 6000yard range, her target was faster and had on spotting the Japanese ship immediately turned tail and fled north, a thick column of smoke partially obscuring her from pursuit.
But in the end the advantages of the Japanese ship were insurmountable, SMS Dresden was on fire from both 8” and 6” shots and was dead in the water, aboard Asuma the Captain elected to finish her quickly, closing to a mere 1000 yards he fired both his starboard torpedo tubes. The torpedos closed the gap swiftly, striking the setting ship amidships and a mere 10m apart, tearing a giant hole in the doomed ships hull. SMS Dresden began to roll immediately, the weight of water let in by the torpedo strike overwhelming what little buoyancy she had retained, the fires quenched as she plunged down into the deep Pacific Ocean, carrying her crew to their eternal rest in the benthic mud. Asuma again signalled the squadron for further orders, she was to search casrefuly for survivors and then join the squadron off Easter Island
Admiral Yamaya retired to his stateroom to write his reports, he would have to take some care, he had violated the neutrality of the Chilean Republic, but he had won another great victory for the Japanese Empire and even more importantly he had won a victory for the Navy. His report would be before the Emperor within hours of its receipt, he had much to do and little time, he was a gracious officer and would seek to ensure that as much glory from this day stuck to his crews as possible. Including he decided in something of an arbitrary decision, that keen eyed sailor at the main top.