Service History
Prinz Adalbert was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel in 1900, under construction number 27. She was ordered under the contract name "B". The completed hull was launched on 22 June 1901, after which fitting-out work was effected. The ship was finally completed by 12 January 1904, the day she was commissioned into the German Navy. Friedrich Carl was ordered as Ersatz König Wilhelm and assigned to the Blohm & Voss shipyard; her keel was laid in 1901. She was launched on 21 June 1902, almost exactly a year after her sister ship. After fitting out work was completed, Friedrich Carl was commissioned into the Navy on 12 December 1903, a month before her sister ship.
Prinz Adalbert went into service as a gunnery training vessel for the fleet after her commissioning, while Friedrich Carl served with the cruiser division of the battle fleet. In 1909, Friedrich Carl joined her sister ship as a training vessel, being used as a torpedo training ship. The two ships were re-mobilized after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. Both ships were assigned to Admiral Behring's cruiser squadron in the Baltic Sea, with Friedrich Carl serving as his flagship. The squadron was based in Neufahrwasser in Danzig. Behring was ordered to undertake actions against the Russian port of Libau, which was believed to be acting as a staging area for British submarines. On the first assault on the port, on 17 November 1914, Friedrich Carl struck a pair of Russian naval mines off Memel. The ship's crew managed to keep the cruiser afloat long enough to allow nearby vessels to take off the entire crew; only seven men were killed in the attack. The operation proceeded as planned, however, and several blockships were sunk in the harbor entrance.
After the sinking of Friedrich Carl, Behring shifted his flag to Prinz Adalbert. The ship conducted several operations against Russian forces, including bombardments of Libau. In May 1915, she supported the German Army attack that captured the city. On 1 July 1915, the ship sortied to reinforce a German minelaying operation that had come under attack by a Russian cruiser flotilla. While en route with the armored cruiser Prinz Heinrich, Prinz Adalbert was torpedoed by the British submarine E9. The damage was severe, though the cruiser was able to return to Kiel for repairs.
Repairs were finally completed by October 1915. Prinz Adalbert was steaming some 20 miles west of Libau in company with a pair of destroyers on 23 October when she was intercepted by the submarine E8. E8 fired a spread of torpedoes at a range of approximately 1,200 m (1,300 yd), which detonated the ship's ammunition magazine. The massive explosion destroyed the ship, which sank immediately with the loss of 672 crew. There were only three survivors. The sinking was the greatest single loss of life for the German Baltic forces for the duration of the war.
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