page_title: SMS Rheinland
section_title: Expedition to Finland
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Rheinland / Service history / World War I / Expedition to Finland
caption_attribution_description: English: German battleship SMS Westfalen.
context_page_description: SMS Rheinland was one of four Nassau-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the German Imperial Navy. Rheinland mounted twelve 28 cm main guns in six twin turrets in an unusual hexagonal arrangement. The navy built Rheinland and her sister ships in response to the revolutionary British HMS Dreadnought, which had been launched in 1906. Rheinland was laid down in June 1907, launched the following year in October, and commissioned in April 1910.
  Rheinland's extensive service with the High Seas Fleet during World War I included several fleet advances into the North Sea, some in support of raids against the English coast conducted by the German battlecruisers of I Scouting Group. These sorties culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in which Rheinland was heavily engaged by British destroyers in close-range night fighting.
  The ship also saw duty in the Baltic Sea, as part of the support force for the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915. She returned to the Baltic as the core of an expeditionary force to aid the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, but ran aground shortly after arriving in the area.
context_section_description: On 22 February 1918, Rheinland and her sister Westfalen were tasked with a mission to Finland to support German army units to be deployed there. The ship arrived in the Åland Islands on 6 March, where her commander became the Senior Naval Commander, a position he held until 10 April. On 11 April, the ship departed the Ålands for Helsinki, with the intention of proceeding to Danzig to refuel. However, she encountered heavy fog while en route and ran aground on Lagskär Island at 07:30. Two men were killed in the incident and the ship was badly damaged. Three boiler rooms were flooded and the inner hull was pierced. Refloating efforts on 18–20 April proved unsuccessful. The crew was removed temporarily, to bring the pre-dreadnought Schlesien back into service. On 8 May, a floating crane was brought in from Danzig; the main guns, some of the turret armor, and the bow and citadel armor were all removed. The ship was lightened by 6,400 metric tons (6,300 long tons; 7,100 short tons)—more than a third of her normal displacement—and with the aid of pontoons, eventually refloated by 9 July. The ship was towed to Mariehamn where some limited repairs were effected. On 24 July the ship departed for Kiel with the assistance of two tug boats; she arrived there three days later. It was determined that repair work was impractical and instead the ship was decommissioned on 4 October and placed into service as a barracks ship in Kiel.
caption: SMS Westfalen
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