SMS Pommern
Encyclopedia
SMS Pommern was one of five Deutschland class
Deutschland class battleship
The Deutschland class was a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. The class comprised , , , , and . Built between 1903 and 1908, the ships closely resembled those of the preceding , though they had stronger armor protection...

 of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Kaiserliche Marine
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...

 between 1904 and 1906. Named after the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n province of Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...

, she was built at the AG Vulcan yard at Stettin, where she was laid down on 22 March 1904 and launched on 2 December 1905. She was commissioned into the navy on 6 August 1907. The ships of her class were already outdated by the time they entered the service, being inferior in size, armor, firepower, and speed to the new post- battleships.

After commissioning she was assigned to the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet
High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...

, where she served throughout the first two years of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Pommern was present at the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

 on 31 May – 1 June 1916. She and her sisters briefly engaged the British battlecruisers commanded by David Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...

; Pommern was hit once by a 12 in (30.5 cm) shell from the battlecruiser . During the confused night actions, the ship was hit by one, or possibly two, torpedoes from the British destroyer , which detonated one of Pommerns 17 cm gun magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...

. The resulting explosion broke the ship in half and killed the entire crew.

Construction

Pommern was laid down on 22 March 1904 at the AG Vulcan dockyard in Stettin. She was originally scheduled to be launched on 19 November 1905, but the water level in the harbor was too low. As a result, the ship could not be launched until 2 December. In July 1907 Pommern was transferred to Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

 where she had her main battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns installed. She was commissioned for trials on 6 August; during her speed run, she made 18.7 knots (10.2 m/s), which made her the fastest pre-dreadnought battleship in the world.

Pommern was 127.6 metre long, had a beam of 22.2 metre, and a draft of 8.21 metre. She had a full-load displacement of 14218 tonnes (13,993 LT). The ship was equipped with triple expansion engines that were rated at 16000 ihp and a top speed of 18 kn (9.8 m/s). Steam was provided by twelve Schulz-Thornycroft boilers. In addition to being the fastest ship of her class, Pommern was the most fuel efficient. At a cruising speed of 10 kn (5.4 m/s), she could steam for 5830 nautical miles (10,797.2 km).

The ship's primary armament consisted of four 28 cm (11 in) SK L/40
28 cm SK L/40 gun
The 28 cm SK L/40 was a German naval gun that was used in World War I and World War II by all German pre-dreadnought battleships...

 guns in two twin turrets.In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnelladekanone) denotes that the gun is quick loading, while the L/40 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/40 gun is 40 caliber
Caliber (artillery)
In artillery, caliber or calibredifference in British English and American English spelling is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or by extension a relative measure of the length....

s, meaning that the gun is 40 times long as it is in diameter.
She was also equipped with fourteen 17 cm (6.7 in) guns mounted in casemates and twenty 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns in pivot mounts. The ship was also armed with six 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tube
Torpedo tube
A torpedo tube is a device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units installed aboard surface vessels...

s, all submerged in the hull.

Pre-war

Pommern was assigned to the II Battle Squadron alongside her sisters. She took part in the annual training cruises and maneuvers with the rest of the High Seas Fleet between 1908–1914. This included fleet training in the Baltic in 1908 and a cruise into the Atlantic the following year. In May 1910 Pommern took part in fleet training in the Kattegat
Kattegat
The Kattegat , or Kattegatt is a sea area bounded by the Jutland peninsula and the Straits islands of Denmark on the west and south, and the provinces of Västergötland, Scania, Halland and Bohuslän in Sweden on the east. The Baltic Sea drains into the Kattegat through the Øresund and the Danish...

 between Denmark and Norway, followed by a cruise to Norway in the summer. At the end of 1910, the fleet conducted another cruise into the Baltic. The next two years followed a similar pattern, though the summer cruise in 1912 was interrupted by the Agadir Crisis
Agadir Crisis
The Agadir Crisis, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, or the Panthersprung, was the international tension sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir on July 1, 1911.-Background:...

. As a result, the cruise was only into the Baltic. Later in the year Pommern took part in maneuvers off Helgoland.

World War I

Pommern remained with the High Seas Fleet throughout the first two years of the naval war. At the outbreak of war, the ship and her sisters in the II Battle Squadron were deployed to the mouth of the Elbe river to guard the area from possible British incursions.

On 24–25 April 1916, Pommern and her sisters joined the dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet to support the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group
I Scouting Group
The I Scouting Group was a special reconnaissance unit within the German Kaiserliche Marine. The unit was famously commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper during World War I. The I Scouting Group was one of the most active formations in the High Seas Fleet during the war; the unit took part in every...

; the battlecruisers were tasked with conducting a raid of the English coast. While en route to the target, the battlecruiser was damaged by a mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

. Seydlitz was detached to return home, and the rest of the ships continued with the mission. Due to poor visibility, the battlecruisers conducted a brief bombardment of the ports of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
The Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft was a naval battle fought during the First World War between the German Empire and the British Empire in the North Sea....

. The operation was quickly called off, which prevented the British fleet from being able to intervene.

Battle of Jutland

Admiral Scheer immediately planned another foray into the North Sea, but the damage to Seydlitz delayed the operation until the end of May. Pommern remained assigned the II Battle Squadron, now under the command of Rear Admiral Franz Mauve. The squadron was positioned at the rear of the German line. During the "Run to the North," Admiral Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II...

, the commander of the fleet, ordered the fleet to pursue the British V Battle Squadron at top speed. The slower Deutschland class ships could not keep up with the faster dreadnoughts and quickly fell behind.

Later in the evening of the first day of the battle, the hard-pressed battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group were being pursued by their British opponents. Pommern and the other so-called "five-minute ships" came to their aid by steaming in between the opposing battlecruiser squadrons. Pommern couldn't make out a target in the darkness, though her several of her sisters could. Despite this, their shooting was ineffective. The British battlecruisers scored several hits on the German ships, including one on Pommern by a 12 in (30.5 cm) shell fired by , forcing her to haul out of line. Admiral Mauve ordered an 8-point
Boxing the compass
Boxing the compass is the action of naming all thirty-two points of the compass in clockwise order. Such names are formed by the initials of the cardinal directions and their intermediate ordinal directions, and are very handy to refer to a heading in a general or colloquial fashion, without...

turn to the south to disengage from the British, and they did not follow.

At 3:10 on the morning of 1 June, Pommern was torpedoed by the British destroyer . At least one torpedo, and possibly a second, struck the ship. The hit detonated one of the 17 cm ammunition magazines aboard Pommern and caused a massive eruption of fire. The tremendous explosion broke the ship in half. The stern capsized and remained afloat for at least 20 minutes with her propellers jutting into the air. , the ship directly astern of Pommern, was forced to haul out of line to avoid the wreck. Pommerns entire crew of 839 officers and enlisted men were killed when the ship sank.
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