Everything about Sms Magdeburg totally explained
Seiner Majestät Schiff Magdeburg was a
light cruiser (
Kleiner Kreuzer) of the
German Imperial Navy. The
first of
her class, she was built as part of the 1908 German naval program. Her class was notable for being the first to introduce a new hull form and replace the bow ram with a cruiser bow shape. She was also one of the first light cruisers to be fitted with an armored waterline.
Service history
On commissioning (
December 10,
1912), she was first used as a torpoedo ship, and at the outbreak of
World War I was assigned to the
Baltic Sea. It was her sinking a few weeks after this, and the recovery by the
Russians of one of the ship's
codebooks, that provided
British cryptologists with the means of breaking secret
German military communications.
The
Magdeburg, under the command of
Korvettenkapitän Richard Habenicht, had set out from
Memel at the eastern tip of
Prussia to join other German warships attacking Russian ships at the entrance to the
Gulf of Finland. In the early hours of
August 26,
1914, while trying to evade approaching Russian vessels, the ship entered fog near the island of
Odensholm and ran aground. While efforts were being made to free the ship, as a precaution most of the
codebooks and
cipher keys were destroyed; some were retained, however, for communication with rescuers.
While the escorting destroyer
V-26 and the the light cruiser
SMS Amazone were unsuccessfully trying to free the
Magdeburg and had rescued most of the crew, Habenicht decided to destroy the ship because of the approach of Russian warships. However, there was considerable confusion as the Russian cruisers
Bogatyr and
Pallada came within range and began firing. The German escort ships were driven off, and the
scuttling charges in the fore magazine were lit before the order had been given, and remaining crew hastily abandoned ship. In the commotion, as the charges exploded, some
codebooks were lost. Fifteen men died in the evacuation; fifty-six crewmen, as well as Captain Habenicht, were captured by the Russians.
The Russians quickly took possession of the wrecked cruiser, and the subsequent search yielded a
codebook forgotten at the bottom of a locker in the ship's aft section. Later, Russian divers found another
codebook, along with the pertinent cipher key, that had been weighted with lead and thrown overboard, as well as a third one lost in abandoning ship. Other documents seized by the Russians included the war signal book, the war diary, and charts of the Baltic. The
Magdeburg was afterwards completely destroyed.
Realizing the value of their find, the Russians immediately offered the undamaged
codebook to their
British allies. The codebook was carried to the United Kingdom by a
Royal Navy warship, via
Arkhangelsk, arriving
October 13 at the British
Admiralty. The book was handed personally to the
First Lord of the Admiralty,
Winston Churchill. He in turn passed it on to
Rear Admiral Henry Oliver,
Director of Naval Intelligence, who had just that August established the
cryptologic section called "
Room 40 ."
Despite this windfall, however, the British were unable to break into the
German Navy's messages until another codebook had been seized from a German
merchant ship off
Melbourne, Australia and delivered to the Admiralty. It held the second key needed to break into German naval communications, giving the
superencipherments.
There was afterward a persistent myth, repeated in
Churchill's writings, that the Russians had found the codebook clutched in the rigid arms of a drowned German sailor who had been washed ashore.
See also
Further Information
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