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By Root 728 0

machinery and loose fittings. The stub of the aft mast rises up out of the deck, and the broken mainmast, lying in two pieces, rests on the deck at an angle. We see three empty cartridge shells, and I am tempted by the thought that they might just be from those three shots that Dresden’s crew managed to fire before the ship sank. But an even more interesting discovery awaits us. Nearby, still in place, is the cruiser’s auxiliary steering station, a paired set of steering wheels that stops Mike in his tracks as we all admire them.

A 4-inch gun, possibly hit by British shellfire, angles inward and points at Dresden’s deck. I count three perfectly spaced shell holes, one after the other, along the ship’s hull towards the casemate, which is partially collapsed. At least it is still here. Its partner, the forward casemate on the port side, is gone—gun, thick armor and all—disintegrated by the scuttling explosions. The level of damage is greater than we had expected. Accounts of the battle emphasize that after a few hits on the stern and on the deck guns, Dresden sank intact when the crew set off a scuttling charge deep in the hull. But what we are finding is evidence of a sustained shelling and at least two massive internal explosions. The entire aft section is heavily damaged, with the main deck gone, shell holes in the steel plates that lie inside the ship’s exposed interior, and plates bent out near the aft port casemate from an internal explosion.

Lying amidst the wreckage is a German sailor’s boot. Willi Kramer believes it to be the evidence of a dead man. Fifteen of Dresden’s crew died, thirteen in the battle and two who succumbed later from their wounds. Willi reminds us that as floating men die, their bodies relax and their boots fall off. Hundreds of boots lie around the Second World War wreck of the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic, grim testimony to the majority of the crew who perished while bobbing in the cold, oil-stained waters. This solitary shoe on the deck of Dresden is a reminder of the individual cost of war, just as the broken hulk of the cruiser is a reminder of the larger costs and waste of war.

Our survey of the wreck indicates that the history books have not told the complete story. It is evident that many shots went into Dresden, even as she sank. The British cruiser commanders had orders to sink Dresden, and they made sure they did just that. The extent of the damage makes us wonder just how close they came to the German cruiser. Historical accounts and maps of the battle show Glasgow, Kent and Orama outside of Cumberland Bay, firing at Dresden from a distance of 9,000 yards, but what we are seeing argues against that. Willi and I, with John Davis, decide to go ashore and search the cliffs for some of the shells fired during the battle and which, according to the locals, are still here.

Moving along the beach, outside of town and past the cemetery with its monument to three of Dresden’s dead crew, we find our first shell hole. It is nearly perfectly round and has bored 3 feet into the cliff. Buried inside, we find the steel base of an unexploded shell. We wonder if this is one of Dresden’s, so we measure it—at 6 inches it is too big to be from Dresden, whose largest guns fired a 4-inch projectile. This is a British 6-inch shell that missed. Imbedded in the cliffs soft volcanic rock and mud, it is more than a relic of the battle. It is a piece of forensic evidence that we are using to reconstruct what happened. Plotting the angle that the shell came from, we line it up with the cape at the entrance to the bay, just where a ship would turn to enter the anchorage. This could be one of the first shots fired at 8:40 on the morning of March 14, 1914, as the British sailed into range and opened up with their guns. We find five other hits, closely spaced as if from a salvo of rapidly fired shots. One hole retains its shell; the others are empty, shells tumbled out by erosion or pulled free by souvenir hunters not realizing what a deadly trophy they had in an unexploded live shell.

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