NAVAL VICTORY IN ATLANTIC

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1914, Page 7

NAVAL VICTORY IN ATLANTIC

ADMIRAL STURDEE'S SQUADRON SINKS THREE GERMAN CRUISERS The following cable message was received this morning by His Excellency the Governor (Lord Liverpool) from the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. JJewis Harcourt) :— The Admiralty announced that on the mornlug of Bth December the German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, Dresden, and Leipzig were sighted near the Falkland Islands by a British squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir F. C. D. Sturdee. An action followed, and the Scharnhorst, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral yon Spec, the Gneisenau, and the Leipzig were all sunk. The Dresden and the Nurnberg are being pursued. •* Two colliers were captured. Our casualties are very few. , Some survivors were rescued from the Gneisenau and Leipzig. OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION (By Telegraph.-4'ress Association.— Copyright.) (Received December 10, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, 9th December. Official — Vice-Admiral Sturdee's Squadron, off the Falkland Islands, at 7.30 on the morning of the sth, engaged and sank Vice-Admiral Yon Sp'ee's lagship Scharnhorst, and the Gneisenau and the Leipzig, Tho squadron pu»aued the Dresden, and the N urnberg.,

Vice-Admiral Sturdee captured two colliers. The casualties were few. Some survivors from the Gneisenau and Leipzig were rescued. WASHINGTON, 9th December, The British Embassy states officially : "The British fleet sank the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Leipzig off the Falkland Islands." SYDNEY, This Day. A Sydney Sun service message states that there we're three British casualties. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were sister ships, armoured cruisers oE 11,400 tons, launched in 1906. They were powerfully engined, with a trial speed of tSventy-thi'ee knots, and had, for vessels of their class, an unusually heavy armament. Each carried eight B.2in, six 5.9 in, and eighteen 21pounder guns, with four torpedo tubes. A twin turret afc each end of the, ship carried half the big guns, the others being singly placed in casements on the broadsides. They were armoured with 6in steel on the waterline and vital parts., and carried a maximum of 2000 tons of coal. Each vessel had about 765 men on board. The Scharnhorst was the flagship of the German China Squadron. The Leipzig was a protected cruiser of 3200 tons, and twenty-two knots speed. She was completed in 1906. Her armament consisted of ten 4.lin guns, and she carried 303 officers and men. The Dresden is a sister ship to the famous Emden. She displaces 3540 tons, has a speed in good weather of twentyfour knots, and is armed, like many other German light cruisers, with ten 4.lin guns. Her complement is 361. The Nurnberg is a somewhat similar vessel, of 3350 tons, armed with ten 4.lin guns, and has a speed of nearly twenty-five knots. She and the Dresden were completed in 1908. Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick C. Doveton Sturdee was, at the outbreak of 1 the war, chief of the Admiralty War Staff, and did not hold a fighting appointment. He was not long ago in command of- the Second Cruiser Squadron, ' with his flag on board H.M.S. Shannon, an armoured cruiser of 14,600 tons and twenty-two and a-half knots, carrying four 9.2 in and ten 7.5 in guns. The Falkland Islands are a group of British islands in the South Atlantic, 300 miles north-east of Cape Horn. It may be noticed that the two fresh messages above give different dates for the engagement. There is no confirmation of either to fix the actual time.