page_title: SMS Hela
section_title: 1901–1913
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Hela / Service history / 1901–1913
caption_attribution_description: English: SMS Hela passing Grønningen lighthouse, Kristiansand.
context_page_description: SMS Hela was an aviso built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the mid-1890s, the last vessel of that type to be built by the German Empire. As the culmination of the type in German service, she represented significant improvements over earlier vessels, particularly the Wacht and Meteor classes, which had been disappointments in service. She was intended to serve as a fleet scout and as a flotilla leader for torpedo boats. Hela marked a step toward the development of the light cruiser. Armed with a battery of four 8.8 cm guns and three 45 cm torpedo tubes, the ship proved to be too weakly-armed for front-line combat.
  Hela had a relatively short active career; engine damage during sea trials shortly after her completion in 1896 delayed the start of her service with the fleet until 1898. She served as a scout for I Squadron from then until 1900, when she was deployed as part of an expeditionary force to help suppress the Boxer Rebellion in Qing China. Hela saw little action during the deployment, instead frequently patrolling the coast of China and the Yangtze river.
context_section_description: After returning from China, Hela immediately participated in the annual fleet maneuvers, serving for the duration with I Scouting Group from 26 August to 19 September. She joined the unit again for a voyage to Oslo, Norway in mid-December, arriving back in Wilhelmshaven on the 16th. Hela returned to service with the main fleet in 1902, and while on a cruise in the Atlantic in May, she was detached to escort the light cruiser Amazone, which had been damaged off the Sevenstones Lightship. By this time, the German naval command had decided that Hela was too weakly-armed to be useful as a fleet scout, and so she was sent to the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel on 16 October to be modernized for use as a training ship for light guns. While in the shipyard, Hela passed from Bredow's command to KK Karl Zimmerman's. The work was completed on 21 December and she was recommissioned for this duty on 31 January 1903, but the poor condition of the ship's boilers required further modifications, which were carried out at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig beginning on 25 April. The aviso Blitz replaced Hela in her intended role.
  Some ship location reports in the German archives in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (German Federal Military Archive) indicate that Hela was in service with I Scouting Group from June to September 1903, but the naval historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz have been unable to locate any official records of her commissioning or decommissioning during this period, nor of who commanded the vessel during this time. No logbook exists in the archives either. According to the location reports, the vessel was to have ended this period in Wilhelmshaven, but no records follow for the transfer to Danzig, where it is definitively known that the ship was reconstructed. Hildebrand, Röhr, and Steinmetz have nevertheless been unable to determine how the mistake continued for several months, or what ship is actually represented in the reports.
  Hela remained in the shipyard in Danzig until 1910, where she underwent a significant reconstruction. She was recommissioned on 1 October and conducted a brief set of sea trials from 14 to 18 October. The ship was thereafter employed as a fleet tender. While on maneuvers on the night of 29–30 March 1911, the torpedo boat S121 inadvertently crossed too closely in front of Hela, which struck the torpedo boat with her bow. Neither vessel was seriously damaged in the collision. In April, KK Theodor Püllen became the ship's captain, serving until October. After that year's fleet maneuvers in August and September, the navy conducted a fleet review for the visit of the Austro-Hungarian Marinekommandant (Naval Commander), Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli. Hela then carried Montecuccoli to visit Wilhelmshaven and the island of Helgoland. The next two years passed uneventfully; she was transferred to Kiel on 1 April 1912. In September, KK Carl-Wilhelm Weniger took command of the ship. In mid-1913, the Italian Vice Admiral Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi visited Germany, and on 31 May, she carried him for a visit to Helgoland, where the fleet was anchored. In September, KK Paul Wolfram relieved Weniger; Wolfram was to be the vessel's last commander.
caption: Hela off the Norwegian coast after her modernization
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