Magdeburg Class Cruisers - Magdeburg Class Cruisers of the German Imperial Navy, Magdeburg Class Cruisers of the Ottoman Navy (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Magdeburg Class Cruisers of the German Imperial Navy, Magdeburg Class Cruisers of the Ottoman Navy, Magdeburg Class Cruisers of the Regia Marina, Mulhouse Class Cruisers, Sms Magdeburg, Sms Breslau, Sms Strassburg, Sms Stralsund, French Armoured Cruiser Mulhouse, Italian Cruiser Taranto, Turkish Cruiser Midilli. Excerpt: Seiner Majestt 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. On commissioning (10 December 1912), she was first used as a torpedo 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 Korvettenkapitn 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 26 August 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 light cruiser SMS Amazone were unsuccessfully trying to free the Magdeburg and had rescued most of the crew, Ha... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=5183658