page_title: SMS Medusa (1864)
section_title: Second overseas deployment
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Medusa (1864) / Service history / Second overseas deployment
caption_attribution_description: English: Relief shown by hachures. Prime meridians: Greenwich, Ferro, Paris. From Stieler's Hand-Atlas. 1872. In upper left: Stieler's Hand Atlas, N⁰ 65. Insets: Schanghai und Umgebung -- Jedo und Umgebung -- Der Canton-Strom und seine Umgebung. Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image.
context_page_description: SMS Medusa was a steam corvette built for the Prussian Navy in the 1860s. She was the second and final member of the Nymphe class, ordered as part of a naval expansion program to counter the Danish Navy over the disputed ownership of Schleswig and Holstein. Medusa was laid down in February 1862, was launched in October 1864, and was completed in September 1865. She had one sister ship, Nymphe, and the vessels were wooden-hulled ships armed with a battery of sixteen guns.
  Medusa went on two major overseas cruises during her career, the first to the Mediterranean Sea in 1867–1868 during the Cretan Revolt against Ottoman rule. The second, lengthier voyage lasted from 1868 to 1871, and centered on operations in East Asia. There, she protected individuals from the German states in Japan during the final stage of the Boshin War, helped to suppress Chinese pirates, and visited numerous ports to show the flag. After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Medusa was trapped in Yokohama, Japan by a French squadron blockading the port; as a result, she saw no action during the conflict.
context_section_description: Medusa was recommissioned on 20 August and was transferred to Danzig, though on 25 September she moved back to Kiel. She was sent to assist the Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky, which had run aground off Aarhus, but she was recalled before arriving when it became clear that the ship was beyond salvaging. On 20 October, she left Germany for an extended cruise abroad. She reached Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 15 December, where she was visited by Emperor Pedro II. Medusa continued the voyage on 3 January 1869, crossing the Indian Ocean and stopping at the island of Île Saint-Paul on 14 February. She sailed on to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, where she met the Bremen-flagged full-rigged ship Adele, which had caught fire and burned badly. Medusa towed Adele to Singapore, where the crew could return home.
  On Medusa's arrival in Singapore, the East Asia Station, which the Navy Department had ordered established in 1867, could finally be created. Medusa initially served as the flagship of the squadron until her long-time consort Hertha arrived on 12 February 1870 to take over that function. In the meantime, Medusa was first tasked with searching for an appropriate location for a coaling station that could be used to support the German squadron; she examined Blair's Harbour on the Malay Peninsula, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Gotō Islands. After returning to Singapore, Medusa received news from the German ambassador to Japan, Max von Brandt, that the Japanese had begun persecuting Europeans in the country, and that her presence was necessary to protect them. She left Singapore on 16 May 1869 and stopped briefly in Hong Kong, where she was present for the official renaming of the Prussian embassy there to the North German embassy, before continuing to Japan. She reached Hakodate in early June, where her crew observed the destruction of the former Prussian corvette Danzig, which had been sold to the Tokugawa Shogunate and renamed Kaiten.
  Medusa sailed to Yokohama and then to Edo, where on 19 August she joined an international fleet of warships organized to pressure the Japanese Meiji government, then in the closing days of the Boshin War, to suppress the attacks on Europeans in the country. Medusa, being one of the shallower-draft vessels of the fleet, anchored close to shore, near the Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu. Negotiations were successfully completed the next day, and Medusa sailed back to Yokohama. She was caught in a typhoon while en route and was badly damaged when a barque was driven into her by the strong winds. During the storm, the United States sloop USS Idaho was also seriously damaged, and Medusa came to her aid; her crew were thanked by President Ulysses S. Grant for their actions. Medusa was under repair in Yokohama until late October.
  Pirate attacks in Chinese waters drew Medusa there after repairs were completed; at the request of the German ambassador in Peking, she operated with British warships to track down pirates attacking European merchant ships. A German barque, Apenrade, that was carrying a load of tea to New York had been attacked off Macao by a pirate junk. Medusa went there on 15 November to track down the pirates; on reaching Apenrade, the Germans discovered that her captain had been injured and a sailor had been killed, but most of her cargo remained, as the pirates had been scared off by the approach of another vessel. Apenrade went back to Macao, and Medusa began the search, along with one Portuguese, one United States, and two Chinese gunboats. The Portuguese gunboat captured the junk, sank it, and carried the crew to Canton, where they were tried and executed for their crime. During the search, Medusa found and arrested another group of pirates who had recently attacked a British barque. Medusa's commander sent a report back to Berlin requesting the permanent stationing of gunboats in the region to help combat the pirates, and as a result, Hertha was dispatched to join his ship.
  Medusa remained in Hong Kong through the end of January 1870, at which point she went to Bangkok, Siam, where she partic
caption: German 1872 map of China, Japan, and Korea
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