SMS Mainz - Service History

Service History

After her commissioning in 1909, Mainz served with the reconnaissance forces of the German fleet. Her first commander was Fregattenkapitän (commander) Friedrich Tiesmeyer, the uncle of Ernst Lindemann; he held the command until January 1910. She was assigned to the II Scouting Group, which screened for the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. After the outbreak of World War I at the beginning of August 1914, she and several other cruisers were tasked with patrol duties in the Heligoland Bight. The cruisers were divided with the torpedo boat flotillas, and assigned to rotate through nightly patrols into the North Sea. As part of this operation, Mainz conducted a patrol on the night of 16 August with the VIII Torpedo-boat Flotilla, without incident.

At the same time, British submarines began reconnoitering the German patrol lines. On 23 August, several British commanders submitted a plan to attack the patrol line with the light cruisers and destroyers of the Harwich Force, commanded by Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt. These ships would be supported by submarines and Vice Admiral David Beatty's battlecruisers and associated light forces. The plan was approved and set for 28 August. The British forces began to leave port on the evening of 26 August, beginning with the submarines assigned to the operation. Most of the surface forces went to sea early on the following morning; the 7th Cruiser Squadron, which had been added to provide further support to the Harwich Force, left port later in the day.

On the morning of 28 August, Mainz was at anchor in the mouth of the Ems; her sister Cöln, the flagship of Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass was re-coaling in Wilhelmshaven, Ariadne lay in the entrance to the Weser. These three cruisers were assigned to support the cruisers Stettin and Frauenlob, and the aviso Hela, which were stationed on the patrol line that morning. At 07:57, the Harwich Force encountered the outer German torpedo boats, which fled back to the German cruisers. In the ensuing Battle of Heligoland Bight, Stettin engaged the British force first, and was quickly reinforced by Frauenlob. At 09:47, Mainz was ordered to steam out behind the British to cut off their line of retreat. She got under way by 10:00, and operated in conjunction with a floatplane used for reconnaissance.

At around 12:30, Mainz encountered the British cruiser Arethusa and several destroyers. The ships engaged each other for the next forty-five minutes. Fifteen minutes into the engagement, three British cruisers appeared ; Mainz broke off the engagement and attempted to escape from the superior British forces. The pursuing British cruisers scored several hits, but by 12:55, Mainz had escaped under cover of a dense smoke screen. Another British cruiser, Fearless, and six destroyers, appeared on Mainz's port side, however, and attacked the fleeing German ship. Mainz quickly scored hits on the destroyers Laurel, Liberty and Laertes; Laurel was damaged and forced to withdraw and Laertes was disabled by a salvo that hit her engine room.

A shell from one of the British cruisers hit Mainz at around 13:00, which jammed her rudder at ten degrees to starboard. Her crew shut off the port engine in an attempt to correct the ship's course, but she continued to turn to starboard. By 13:20, the majority of the ship's guns had been disabled and the ship's superstructure had been shot to pieces. Her center and aft funnel collapsed after suffering several hits. A torpedo from the destroyer Lydiard then hit the ship on her port side, amidships; this prompted the ship's commander to order the crew to abandon the stricken cruiser. He then left the conning tower with the navigation officer, both of whom were immediately killed by a shell hit. The ship's communication system was out of service, and so the order to abandon ship did not reach the entire crew. The ship's executive officer then reached the bridge, and reiterated the order to abandon the crippled ship at 13:35.

Mainz was by now completely disabled. Her engines were stopped and her guns had ceased firing. Shortly before 14:00, Lurcher came alongside and took off the wounded German sailors. At 14:10, Mainz rolled over to port and quickly sank at the position 53°58' N and 6°42' W; the survivors now in the water gave three cheers for their ship. The British rescued 348 survivors; 89 men, including the ship's commander, were killed in the battle. Among the survivors was Oberleutnant zur See (Sub-Lieutenant) Wolfgang von Tirpitz, the son of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the German fleet. Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, informed Tirpitz via the US embassy in Berlin that his son survived the battle. In the course of the engagement, the British sank two more German cruisers: Mainz's sister Cöln and Ariadne, with minimal losses to themselves.