SMS Karlsruhe (1916)
SMS "Karlsruhe" was a light cruiser of the , built for the "Kaiserliche Marine" (Imperial Navy) during World War I. She was named after the earlier , which had sunk in November 1914, from an accidental explosion. The new cruiser was laid down in 1914 at the "Kaiserliche Werft" shipyard in Kiel, launched in January 1916, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet in November 1916. Armed with eight 15 cm SK L/45 guns, the ship had a top speed of . She saw relatively limited service during the war, due to her commissioning late in the conflict. She was  present during a brief engagement with British light forces in August 1917, though she did not actively participate in the battle. She joined the large task force assigned to Operation Albion in October 1917, but did not see significant action during that operation either. She was assigned to what was to have been the final sortie of the High Seas Fleet in the closing days of the war, but a large-scale mutiny in significant parts of the fleet forced the cancellation of the plan. "Karlsruhe" was interned in Scapa Flow after the end of the war, and scuttled there  on 21 June 1919. Unlike most of the other ships sunk there, her wreck was never raised. Design. "Karlsruhe" was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of two sets of steam turbines powered by ten coal-fired and two oil-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers. These provided a top speed of and a range of at . The ship had a crew of 17 officers and 458 enlisted men. The ship was armed with a main battery of eight SK L/45  guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, four were located amidships, two on either side, and two were arranged in a superfiring pair aft. They were supplied with 1,040 rounds of ammunition, for 130 shells per gun. "Karlsruhe" also carried two SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns mounted on the centerline astern of the funnels. She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes in deck-mounted swivel launchers amidships. She also carried 200 mines. The ship was protected by a waterline armored belt that was thick amidships. The  conning tower had thick sides, and the deck was covered with 60 mm thick armor plate. Service history. "Karlsruhe" was ordered under the contract name "Ersatz " and was laid down at the "Kaiserliche Werft" shipyard in Kiel in 1915. She was launched on 31 January 1916 without ceremony due to the war, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 15 November 1916. She was not allocated to a fleet unit until 22 February 1917, when she was assigned to II Scouting Group. She thereafter served with the other cruisers of the unit  in conducting defensive patrols in the German Bight to guard against British incursions. She also supported minelaying and minesweeping operations, the first of which took place on 5 March. "Karlsruhe" escorted a group of minesweepers into the German Bight to clear a British minefield. Another operation took place on 6 April; "Karlsruhe", the light cruiser , and the 2nd Torpedoboat Half-Flotilla sortied to the Amrun Bank to rescue the submarine "U-22", which had been damaged and needed assistance returning to port. On 16 August 1917, "Karlsruhe" participated in a mine-sweeping operation in the North Sea. The minesweepers were clearing  Route Yellow, one of the channels in the minefields used by U-boats to leave and return to port. "Karlsruhe" was joined by the cruiser and three torpedo boats. At 12:55, lookouts on one of the minesweepers spotted a British squadron of three light cruisers and sixteen destroyers approaching. The minesweepers fled south under cover of smoke screens, after which the British broke off the attack. "Karlsruhe" and the rest of the escort failed to come to their aid, however, and the commander of the operation was subsequently relieved of command. Operation Albion. In early September 1917, following the German  conquest of the Russian port of Riga, the German navy decided to eliminate the Russian naval forces that still held the Gulf of Riga. "Karlsruhe" took part in training exercises that month with the rest of II Scouting Group in preparation for the attack. The "Admiralstab" (Navy High Command) planned Operation Albion to seize the Baltic island of Ösel, and specifically the Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula. On 18 September, the order was issued for a joint operation with the army to capture Ösel and Moon Islands; the primary naval component comprised the flagship, the battlecruiser , along with  the III and IV Battle Squadrons of the High Seas Fleet. The invasion force amounted to approximately 24,600 officers and enlisted men. "Karlsruhe" and the rest of II Scouting Group provided the cruiser screen for the task force. On 24 September, "Karlsruhe" departed Kiel, bound for Libau, where she arrived the following day. On 26 September, she helped carry infantry units to Putziger Wiek, where the men were loaded onto the capital ships of the invasion fleet. "Karlsruhe" thereafter returned to Libau on 2 October, where she embarked two officers and seventy-eight enlisted men from the Saxon "Radfahr-Bataillonen  (Bicycle Battalion). The ship then left Libau on 11 October as the leader of the 2nd Transport Group. The operation began on the morning of 12 October, when Moltke" and the III Squadron ships engaged Russian positions in Tagga Bay while the IV Squadron shelled Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula on Ösel. The men aboard "Karlsruhe" went ashore in Tagga Bay that morning; she left the area in company with ten transport ships on 17 October and escorted them back to Libau. Over the course of the next two days, "Karlsruhe" and the rest of II Scouting Group  covered minesweepers operating off the island of Dagö, but due to an insufficient number of minesweepers and bad weather, the operation was postponed. By 20 October, the islands were under German control and the Russian naval forces had either been destroyed or forced to withdraw. The "Admiralstab" then ordered the naval component to return to the North Sea. "Karlsruhe" returned to Kiel before proceeding to the North Sea on 27 October, where she resumed coastal defense duties. From 16 November to 6 December, she underwent periodic maintenance. Later career and fate. In early April 1918, "Karlsruhe" supported the laying of  a defensive minefield in the North Sea that was laid in preparation for a major fleet operation later that month. She then took part in the abortive fleet operation on 23–24 April to attack British convoys to Norway. I Scouting Group and II Scouting Group, along with the Second Torpedo-Boat Flotilla were to attack a heavily guarded British convoy to Norway, with the rest of the High Seas Fleet steaming in support. During the operation, "Karlsruhe" and "Graudenz" were the leading vessels in the German formation. While steaming off the Utsira Lighthouse in southern Norway, "Moltke" had a serious  accident with her machinery, which led Scheer to break off the operation and return to port by 25 April. From 10 to 13 May, "Karlsruhe" and the rest of II Scouting Group escorted the minelayer "Senta" while the latter vessel laid a defensive minefield to block British submarines form operating in the German Bight. Later that month, she escorted the new dreadnought battleship . II Scouting Group thereafter conducted additional training in the Baltic from 11 to 12 July. "Karlsruhe"s commander served as the commander of the group while the group commander, "Kapitän zur See" ("KzS"—Captain at Sea) Magnus von Levetzow , was away for the meetings that led to the formation of the "Seekriegsleitung" ("SKL"—Maritime Warfare Command). Levetzow returned on 5 August, "Karlsruhe" having gone into the shipyard for maintenance on 1 August. "Karlsruhe" took part in evacuation efforts on the coast of Flanders on 14 August in the aftermath of the Battle of Amiens. She loaded seventy mines, with the intention of laying a minefield in company with the cruisers and , but the operation was cancelled when it became clear that "Nürnberg" had to be drydocked for repairs. "Karlsruhe" took part in training operations in the Baltic from 16 to  23 October, after which she resumed guard duties in the German Bight. Later that month, "Karlsruhe" and the rest of the II Scouting Group were to lead a final attack on the British navy. "Karlsruhe", "Nürnberg", and "Graudenz" were to bombard targets in Flanders while , , , and were to attack merchant shipping in the Thames estuary, to draw out the British Grand Fleet. Admirals Reinhard Scheer and Franz von Hipper intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to secure a better bargaining position for Germany, whatever the cost to the fleet. On the morning of 29  October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven the following day. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on and then on several other battleships mutinied. The unrest ultimately forced Hipper and Scheer to cancel the operation. Following the capitulation of Germany in November 1918, most of the High Seas Fleet's ships, under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, were interned in the British naval base in Scapa Flow. "Karlsruhe" was among the ships interned, and the II Scouting Group commander, "KzS" Victor Harder, came aboard "Karlsruhe" for the voyage to internment since his  normal flagship, "Königsberg", was not included on the list of ships to be interned. The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the Versailles Treaty. Von Reuter believed that the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June 1919, which was the deadline for Germany to have signed the peace treaty. Unaware that the deadline had been extended to the 23rd, Reuter ordered the ships to be sunk at the next opportunity. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers, and at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order  to his ships; "Karlsruhe" sank at 15:50, one of the last ships of the fleet to sink. She was never raised for scrapping, as she had sunk in a greater depth than many of the other ships. The rights to her wreck were sold in 1962, and some non-ferrous metals were removed from the wreck. In 2017, marine archaeologists from the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology conducted extensive surveys of "Karlsruhe" and nine other wrecks in the area, including six other German and three British warships. The archaeologists mapped the wrecks with sonar and examined them with remotely operated  underwater vehicles as part of an effort to determine how the wrecks are deteriorating. The wreck at some point came into the ownership of the firm Scapa Flow Salvage, which sold the rights to the vessel to Tommy Clark, a diving contractor, in 1981. Clark listed the wreck for sale on eBay with a "buy-it-now" price of £60,000, with the auction lasting until 28 June 2019. The wreck of "Karlsruhe" ultimately sold for £8,500 to a private buyer, while the three dreadnoughts Clark had also placed for sale were purchased by a company from the Middle  East for £25,500 apiece. Her wreck lies at and remains a popular site for recreational scuba divers.