SMS Möwe
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| History | |
|---|---|
 German Empire
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| Ordered: | Laeisz |
| Builder: | Tecklenburg |
| Launched: | 1914 as Pungo |
| In service: | 1 November 1915 |
| Fate: | taken as war reparations by the UK, sunk as German freighter Oldenburg 7 April 1945 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 9,800 tons (4,788 gross register tons (GRT)) |
| Length: | 123.7 m |
| Beam: | 14.4 m |
| Draught: | 7.2 m |
| Propulsion: | 1 × 3-cylinder triple expansion; 5 × boiler; 3,200 hp |
| Speed: | 13 knots |
| Range: | 8,700 nm at 12 kn |
| Complement: | 235 |
| Armament: |
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SMS Möwe (German: Seagull) was a merchant raider of the Imperial German Navy which operated against Allied shipping during World War I.
Disguised as a neutral cargo ship to enable it to get close to targets, the Möwe was effective at commerce raiding, sinking several ships in the course of the war.
Built by the Tecklenborg yard at Geestemünde, she was launched as the freighter Pungo in 1914 and operated by the Afrikanische Fruchtkompanie for F. Laeisz of Hamburg. After an uneventful career carrying cargoes of bananas from the German colony of Kamerun to Germany she was requisitioned by the Imperial German Navy for use as a minelayer. Her conversion took place at Imperial shipyard at Wilhelmshaven in the autumn of 1915, and under the command of Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien, she entered service on 1 November that year.
Möwe slipped out of Wilhelmshaven on 29 December 1915 for her first task, to set a minefield in the Pentland Firth, near the main base of the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. This was completed in severe weather conditions. A few days later the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS King Edward VII struck one of the mines; despite attempts to tow her to safety she sank. Möwe then moved down the west coast of Ireland to France. There she laid another mine field off the Gironde estuary, which sank a further two ships.
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Wikipedia