Voyage to Gallipoli by Peter Plowman

Author:Peter Plowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosenberg Publishing

Map of the battle

The Sydney slowed down to 13 knots to fire the torpedo, but their range-finder being disabled they had to guess at the range and were some distance out in their estimate. Having fired the torpedo the Sydney immediately speeded up again, and the pounding match recommenced. Then the Emden turned so as to bring her port guns to bear, and the Sydney turned too, and fought her port guns. At that point the Emden was showing signs of sinking, and she turned sharply and made direct for North Keeling Island. The captain of the Sydney thought that the Emden perhaps intended to take shelter behind the island, so he sent the Sydney full speed ahead so as to cut her off from it. The Emden, however, held straight on for the island and crashed upon the shore on fire in several places, her funnels and one mast shot away, her decks a shambles, the captain stupefied by lyddite fumes, and every man above deck in such a state of stupefaction through the appalling slaughter, the din of the explosions and the lyddite fumes, that no one had presence of mind to haul down the German flag, which still flew on her remaining mast.

As the battle had been proceeding another ship had been sighted coming from the north. This turned out to be the Buresk, the British collier that had been captured in the Indian Ocean by the Emden and was coming for a pre-arranged rendezvous with the German cruiser to transfer coal to the warship. On realising what was happening, the German prize crew on board Buresk tried to get into a position where they could ram the Sydney. As Banjo Paterson later wrote:

The captain of the Sydney seeing that the Emden had not struck her colours, fired one or two more salvoes at her; and then, seeing that she was, to use his own words, ‘beached and done for’, he headed after the collier which, with a German prize crew on board, had accompanied the fight throughout, keeping for the most part outside the Sydney with the evident intention of ramming her should an opportunity arise. This collier was the Buresk, an English vessel which had been captured by the Emden and was accompanying her in her wanderings. The Sydney soon overtook the collier, and made her heave to, and sent a boarding party on board hoping to save her, but the Germans had opened the cocks, and by the time the boat’s crew from Sydney got on board there was no hope of saving the Buresk. The Sydney took the crew off and then fired one broadside into the Buresk at 600 yards, a beautiful shot, which took her on the water line and sent her to the bottom.

Dr Todd later wrote:

The battle had lasted about an hour and twenty minutes and we had expended 600 shells. With the Emden well on the beach and incapable of further action, the Sydney steamed away after another

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