SMS Dresden- hiding in Chilean fjords 1915

[egbert]

From the bridge approaching the most southerly point of mainland America, Cape Froward on the map. Here her course changes by 90 degrees from due south to a westerly course, following the Magallen Straits. Another 1o miles is where the Dresden turns sharp left (portside) into Barbara and Gonzales channel, her first hiding place.

It is getting dark, so we hurry up to see Barbara channel before the pitchblack Patagonia night starts around 9 p.m.

[egbert]

Now only 5km away from hideout channel "Barbara" that leads to "Gonzales". Will we make it before nightfall?

[egbert]

No luck this picture is the last before the quick night covers everything in enigmas and mysteries. Very Short of "Barbara". Hope you have a rough understanding how difficult these waters are to navigate and how to use in operational war-mode, any enemy possible around any corner at any time....

[MartH]

Excellent posts Egbert!

[egbert]

Thanx Mart.

Amazing modern day technics working here- pictures with 6 hours delay sent to your living rooms.

The following picture tells---- is HMS Kent coming around the corner in search to destroy SMS Dresden, or is Dresden already aiming its guns towards approaching Kent?

[egbert]

It happens right now - in a desperate move HMS Invincible searches at the right end of the rainbow, but SMS Dresden uses the left end for hiding....

[egbert]

I could post many more minute-to-minute pictures from the icecold search area into the warmth of heated living rooms, but this 1915 area of operation does not seem to attract many followers on GWF.

A final view from search area?:

[michaeldr]

Don't worry about my not opening your files Egbert

There are ones of my own which won't open either

It's an ongoing problem here at my end

Thanks for the marvelous photographs

[MartH]

Thanks Egbert

[Fattyowls]

You are a very lucky man Egbert; I love the photographs, it's almost as good as being there.

Pete.

[tim_oz]

Egbert

As always wonderful photos thanks for posting them for us.

Tim B

[SteveMarsdin]

Stunning photos, Egbert. Thanks for posting.

Steve

[paul@bolton]

Marvellous photographs. Thanks very much for posting them. That last one (with the light on the glacier) is worthy of National Geographic.

Paul

[egbert]

Thank you all. I see there is a group of followers. In a week we are again in the search area of Dresden hideouts. Hope to take more daylight pictures. For my part- I do understand that a relative small ship like a small cruiser can hide forever here without being detected. Just have a look at the last glacier picture with the ship left side- it is appr. the same size like a WWI light cruiser. Did you see it at first glance?

[egbert]

The waters here are extremely treacherous. The weather may change from one minute to the other. A captains masterpiece in 1915 to navigate in these waters withoit exact navigational charts and no whatsoever navigational aids like lighthouses and markers, no predictable weather forecasts..

This picture shows the weather phenomena: approximately 5 minutes before I took the picture, the sky was blue, calm winds and no seastate. Suddenly- even with our todays high tech equipment - we were surprised by a fierce storm with winds at 100km\h coming out of the blue. The sea was boiling. After some 20 minutes the sky was blue and the sea calm as a bathtub can be. Big kudos to the captains from 1915, who could not even rely on local pilots for most of their operational sailings.

Two enemy ships, surprised by these conditions could pass each other at 1 mile distance without detecting each other.

Edited 11 August , 2021 by egbert

[MartH]

I am really enjoying this topic!

[egbert]

There more you enjoy the thread the more I am encouraged to share some of my findings here in situ.

This is a comparison image , our modern day bridge navigational,devices with my tablet shown with 1915 chart. The differences are enormous and were deadly then. The maps were not accurate at all. The snippet shows the principal 1915 hideouts from Dresden but also the "Scholl Bay", the principal anchor grounds for the RN in search for Dresden.

You should read the text, attached earlier as a doc in this thread in order to understand the difficulties for both sides, hiding a cruiser and its attached supply ships and the search- sysiphean undertaking for the RN.

[egbert]

We are talking about an operation that covers roughly the size of Scotland plus. But the actual hide and seek covered only the size of London. This picture makes it clear how difficult it was for either side to search in hundreds of side fjords and neverending bendings for the enemy respectively the best suited hiding place . The smaller islands within the side passages alone may hide a vessel of Sierra Cordoba's or Dresden's size. This picture not far away from Cordobas hideout

[egbert]

This image from close to Cockburn and Scholl Bay - just imagine this is the view from HMS Kent, anchored at Scholl B. with Sierra Cordoba hiding around the visible land tongue, further down into the cul de sac fjord -an easy prey, undetected

[egbert]

So how could it look like from Sierra Cordoba's bridge? Just a few miles around the land tongue, hoping the RN issues a new round of harbour gin, the captain of S.C. sees it like this

[egbert]

From the mentioned eye-witness account :

Sierra Cordoba, the emancipated freighter sailed to the splendid isolation of Martinez Inlet, frowned on by the huge Sarmiento glaciers. This inlet is about a hundred miles from Christmas Bay, where the Dresden lay. It was ideal for Sierra Cordoba's purpose—it is a long narrow fissure, almost enclosed by towering precipices—but it is a dead end.

Twilight with the lonely glaciers, but from our bridge or is this picture a 1915 Sierra Cordoba bridge view? Anyway, then and now, it is frigging cold!

[egbert]

From eyewitness account:

"Promptly at 8 P.M. Sierra Cordoba weighed anchor, her boiler pressure at its highest and her smoke stack shrouded in wire gauze to avoid betrayal by sparks. For the first ten miles of her course, being still in Martinez Sound, her presence was concealed from the cruisers as here the mountains interposed their bulk. The critical moments would come when she swung into Keats Sound, which is commanded from Sholl Bay; but here the elements came to the aid of the would-be unobtrusive steamer. The furious storm continued, the night was as black as pitch and, except for occasional breaks, no objects could be discerned even a hundred yards off. After carefully nosing her way out of Martinez, Sierra Cordoba swung round into Keats Channel and, hugging the precipitous Goodwin side, which furnished a very effective background, raced along at full speed on a bearing. The hurtling, sleety smother of darkness held; they were now close to the cruisers, but in this weather the keenest look-out was futile. The cruisers were passed in safety; but now, all but blindly, Sierra Cordoba had to thread her way in the darkness through the savage labyrinth of rocks and little islands that led to Cockburn and thence to Adelaide Passage. Pagels remembers that Captain Schaeffer was nearly frantic with nervous foreboding during this unorthodox paseo, but realised that risks had to be taken. It was all for the Vaterland.

The entrance to Christmas Bay (Gonzalez Channel) might well have spelt disaster to them in spite of their earlier good fortune, even when they reached it in the morning's watery light. This passage is a snaky S-shaped narrow, at most a hundred yards wide, banked by lowering, lofty cliffs, a most hazardous pass for any bark of greater tonnage than a canoe. But fortune was again 'mitt uns': Sierra Cordoba braved it on a strong outflowing tide, a roaring current, and this gave the ship, with her twin screws and powerful engines, good steerage-way. The last danger-point was successfully negotiated and soon Sierra Cordoba, to the delirious hochs of both crews, dropped anchor four hundred yards from Dresden. "

And so she slipped through the twilight zone towards Dresden

With all the best greetings from the end of the world

Egbert

[egbert]

Sierra Cordoba in Magellan Strait heading West towards Eastern Dresden

[Fattyowls]

You are a born storyteller Egbert.

Pete.

[egbert]

Right now in this very minute we are sailing DIRECTLY above the wrecks of HMS Monmouth and HMS Good Hope which were sunk by Dresden and co. on Nov, 1st 1914 in the battle of Coronado. We salute the 1700 sailors kia with our fog horns as visibility is under 100m.

R.I.P.

@

The Gonzales Channel is, IIRC, not navigable for a modern ship, and the Cockburn Channel was mined (Chile against Argentina - or vice versa!) when I was last there (January 1995).

Julian

Before reaching the Coronel battleground I had a meeting this morning with our 2 Chilean Navy pilots about the Dresden hideouts as they know the waters down there like their pocket. For them it is a miracle that the Dresden managed to slip through Gonzales channel, they would not do it nowadays with a ship of that size. Also they told me more about mining of Cockburn- it was only mined around 1978 when Argentinia and Chile was about to fight for 3 islands in tierra del Fuego. In 1995 the mines were already swept they said. They also told stuff about their role in the Falkland war. VERY interesting and not suited to be discussed in a public forum.