SMS Yorck

SMS ("His Majesty's Ship Yorck") was the second and final ship of the of armored cruisers built for the German (Imperial Navy) as part of a major naval expansion program aimed at strengthening the fleet. was named for Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, a Prussian field marshal. She was laid down in 1903 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, launched in May 1904, and commissioned in November 1905. The ship was armed with a main battery of four guns and had a top speed of . Like many of the late armored cruisers, was quickly rendered obsolescent by the advent of the battlecruiser; as a result, her peacetime career was limited.

spent the first seven years of her career in I Scouting Group, the reconnaissance force for the High Seas Fleet, initially as the group flagship. She undertook training exercises and made several cruises in the Atlantic Ocean. was involved in several accidents, including an accidental explosion aboard the ship in 1911 and a collision with a torpedo boat in 1913. In May 1913, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve until the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. She was then mobilized and assigned to III Scouting Group. On 3 November, she formed part of the screen for the High Seas Fleet as it sailed to support a German raid on Yarmouth; on the return of the fleet to Wilhelmshaven, the ships encountered heavy fog and anchored in the Schillig Roads to await better visibility. Believing the fog to have cleared sufficiently, the ship's commander ordered to get underway in the early hours of 4 November. She entered a German minefield in the haze, struck two mines, and sank with heavy loss of life. The wreck was dismantled progressively between the 1920s and 1980s to reduce the navigational hazard it posed.

Design

The two -class cruisers were ordered in 1902 as part of the fleet expansion program specified by the Second Naval Law of 1900. The two ships were incremental developments of the preceding s, the most significant difference being a longer hull; the extra space was used to add a pair of boilers, which increased horsepower by and speed by . The launch of the British battlecruiser in 1907 quickly rendered all of the armored cruisers that had been built by the world's navies obsolescent.

was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as built and fully loaded. The ship had a crew of 35 officers and 598 enlisted men, though this was frequently augmented with an admiral's staff during periods when she served as a flagship.

The ship was propelled by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, steam being provided by sixteen coal-fired water-tube boilers. s propulsion system developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of on trials, falling short of her intended speed of . She carried up to of coal, which enabled a maximum range of up to at a cruising speed of .

was armed with four SK L/40 guns arranged in two twin-gun turrets, one on either end of the superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of ten SK L/40 guns; four were in single-gun turrets on the upper deck and the remaining six were in casemates in a main-deck battery. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried fourteen SK L/35 guns, all in individual mounts in the superstructure and in the hull. She also had four underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside. She carried a total of eleven torpedoes.

The ship was protected with Krupp cemented armor, the belt armor being thick amidships and reduced to on either end. The main battery turrets had thick faces. Her deck was thick, connected to the lower edge of the belt by thick sloped armor.

Service history

Construction – 1908

was ordered under the provisional name and built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg under construction number 167. Her keel was laid down on 25 April 1903 and she was launched on 14 May 1904. General Wilhelm von Hahnke gave a speech at the launching ceremony and the vessel was christened after Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, a Prussian general during the Napoleonic Wars by Josephine Yorck von Wartenburg, one of his descendants. Fitting-out work was completed by late 1905, when the ship began builder's trials, after which a shipyard crew transferred the vessel to Kiel, where she was commissioned into the fleet on 21 November. After her commissioning, served with the fleet in I Scouting Group, which she formally joined on 27 March 1906. On 2 April, she replaced the armored cruiser as the group flagship, under the command of (''VAdm''—Vice Admiral) Gustav Schmidt. Over the next several years, took part in the peacetime routine of training exercises with the fleet reconnaissance forces and with the entire High Seas Fleet, including major fleet exercises every autumn in late August and early September.

On 29 September, (''KAdm''—Rear Admiral) Hugo von Pohl replaced Schmidt as the group commander. After 1907's autumn maneuvers, went into drydock for an extensive overhaul from 11 September to 28 October, during which time temporarily replaced her as the flagship. While she was out of service, Pohl was replaced by ''KAdm'' August von Heeringen, who raised his flag aboard upon her return from the shipyard. The ship went on a major cruise into the Atlantic Ocean from 7 to 28 February 1908 with the other ships of the scouting group. During the cruise, the ships conducted various tactical exercises and experimented with using their wireless telegraphy equipment at long distances. They stopped in Vigo, Spain, to replenish their coal for the voyage home. On 1 May, the new armored cruiser joined I Scouting Group, replacing as the group flagship.

Another Atlantic cruise followed in July and August; this time, the cruise was made in company with the battleship squadrons of the High Seas Fleet. Prince Heinrich had pressed for such a cruise the previous year, arguing that it would prepare the fleet for overseas operations and would break up the monotony of training in German waters, though tensions with Britain over the developing Anglo-German naval arms race were high. The fleet departed Kiel on 17 July, passed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal to the North Sea, and continued to the Atlantic. stopped in Funchal in Madeira and A Coruña, Spain during the cruise. The fleet returned to Germany on 13 August. The autumn maneuvers followed from 27 August to 12 September. won the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for excellent shooting among armored cruisers for the 1907–1908 training year. During this period, Erich Raeder served as the ship's navigation officer. In October, (''KzS''—Captain at Sea) Arthur Tapken took command of the ship; he served as the ship's commander until September 1909.

1909–1913

In February 1909, I Scouting Group went on another training cruise in the Atlantic; again stopped in Vigo from 17 to 23 February. After the ships' return to Germany, was detached to the East Asia Squadron on 11 March, vacating the flagship role, which again filled. Heeringen and the command staff returned to the ship the same day. The cruisers joined the High Seas Fleet for another Atlantic cruise in July and August, and visited Vilagarcía de Arousa from 18 to 26 July. On the way back to Germany, the fleet stopped in Spithead, Britain, where it was received by the Royal Navy. By early 1910, the new armored cruiser was ready for service with the fleet, and so now-''VAdm'' Heeringen hauled down his flag from on 25 April and transferred to the new vessel two days later. thereafter became the flagship of ''KAdm'' Reinhard Koch, the deputy commander of the group. Already on 16 May, Koch was replaced by ''KAdm'' Gustav Bachmann, who was in turn replaced by ''KAdm'' Maximilian von Spee on 15 September when Bachmann succeeded Heeringen as the group commander. won the for the 1909–1910 year. ''KzS'' Ludwig von Reuter served as the ship's commander from September 1910.

While in the shipyard for maintenance on 31 March 1911, a benzene explosion in the ship's aft-most boiler room killed one man and injured several, preventing from taking part in unit maneuvers. On 1 October, ''KzS'' and (Commodore) Franz von Hipper replaced Spee, after which the ship joined a cruise to Norway and Sweden in November. She visited Uddevalla, Sweden from 3 to 6 November during the cruise. did not take part in the unit maneuvers conducted in February 1912. In March, and four light cruisers filled I Scouting Group's role during fleet exercises, and during the maneuvers now-''VAdm'' Bachmann came aboard to direct their participation. During the exercises, Hipper temporarily transferred his flag to the new battlecruiser , but returned thereafter until 28 August. In September, (Frigate Captain) Max Köthner replaced Reuter as the ship's captain, though he served in the role only briefly before departing in November. The ship suffered an accident on 2 November when one of her pinnaces accidentally detonated a naval mine, killing two men and injuring two more.

was involved in another serious accident on 4 March 1913 during training exercises off Helgoland. The torpedo boat attempted to pass in front of the ship but failed to clear her in time; s bow tore a hole into ''S178'' that flooded her engine and boiler rooms. ''S178'' sank within a few minutes of the accident and 69 men were killed in the accident. , the battleship , and the torpedo boat were only able to pull fifteen men from the sea. was only slightly damaged in the accident and continued with the maneuvers. ''KAdm'' Felix Funke and Bachmann alternated periods aboard , with Funke flying his flag from 7 to 14 March, followed by Bachmann from 14 March to 1 May, and finally Funke from 1 to 17 May. thereafter steamed to Kiel, where on 21 May she was decommissioned, the last armored cruiser to serve with I Scouting Group. She thereafter underwent an overhaul and was placed in reserve. Most of her crew transferred to the newly completed battlecruiser .

World War I

Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, was mobilized for active service; she was recommissioned on 12 August. Initially assigned to IV Scouting Group, on 25 August she was transferred to III Scouting Group, under the command of ''KAdm'' Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz. Beginning on 20 September, she was tasked with guarding the German Bight. The ships of III Scouting Group transferred temporarily to the Baltic Sea two days later for a sortie into the central Baltic, as far north as Östergarn, from 22 to 29 September. They then returned to the North Sea and rejoined the High Seas Fleet.

On 3 November, participated in the first offensive operation of the war conducted by the German fleet. I Scouting Group, by now commanded by ''RAdm'' Hipper, was to bombard Yarmouth on the British coast while the bulk of the High Seas Fleet sailed behind, providing distant support in the event that the raid provoked a British counterattack. and the rest of III Scouting Group provided the reconnaissance screen for the main fleet. Hipper's ships inflicted little damage and minelayers laid minefields off the coast, which later sank the British submarine . Upon returning to Wilhelmshaven late that day, the German ships encountered heavy fog that prevented them from safely navigating the defensive minefields that had been laid outside the port. Instead, they anchored in the Schillig roadstead.

s commander, ''KzS'' Pieper, believed the fog to have cleared sufficiently to allow the vessel to return to port, so he ordered the ship to get underway. The pilot refused to take responsibility for maneuvering the ship owing to the great danger of trying to pass through the minefields under the foggy conditions. At 04:10, struck a mine and began to turn to exit the minefield, striking a second mine shortly thereafter. She quickly sank with heavy loss of life, though sources disagree on the number of fatalities. The naval historian V. E. Tarrant states that 127 out of a crew of 629 were rescued; Erich Gröner contends that there were only 336 deaths. The naval historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz concur with Gröner on the number of fatalities and note that 381 men, including Pieper, were rescued by the coastal defense ship .

For his reckless handling of the ship, Pieper was tried in a court-martial, convicted, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment for negligence, disobedience of orders, and homicide through negligence. The wreck, located between Horumersiel and Hooksiel, was initially marked to allow vessels to pass safely. Beginning in 1926, the wreck was partially scrapped to reduce the navigational hazard to deeper-draft vessels. More work was done in 1936–1937 for the same reason. During a series of construction programs to expand the entrance to the Jade after World War II, the ship's turrets were removed in 1969 and the remaining parts of the hull were demolished in 1983 to further clear the sea floor.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yorck
Roon-class cruisers
Ships built in Hamburg
1904 ships
World War I cruisers of Germany
World War I shipwrecks in the North Sea
Maritime incidents in November 1914
Ships sunk by mines