SMS Roon was the lead ship of her class of armored cruisers of the Imperial German Navy. The ship was authorized under the second Naval Law in 1902, and built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel at the cost of 15.3 million marks. The ship was named after Albrecht von Roon, a Prussian general and politician.

The ship participated in several actions during the First World War, including the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, as well as operations against Russian forces in the Baltic Sea. After 1916, Roon was used as a training and barracks ship in Kiel until the end of the war. The ship was struck from the naval register in 1920 and scrapped thereafter.

Service history

Roon was laid down in August 1902 at the Kiel dockyard, and launched in June 1903, during which the inspector general Alfred von Waldersee was made patron of the ship. The ship was completed in April 1906, at a cost of 15,345,000 Mark. In 1908, Roon was serving as the flagship for Rear Admiral Jacobsen, in the Second Group of the Scouting Division of the High Seas Fleet, along with her sistership Yorck. After being replaced as the flagship of the Scouting Group on 30 September by the new battlecruiser Moltke, Roon was decommissioned in 1911; however, she was recommissioned three years later at the outbreak of World War I. At the start of hostilities, Roon was serving as the flagship of the III Scouting Group. On 3 November, 1914, she participated in the operation to bombard Yarmouth.

Bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby

A month later, on 15–16 December, she participated in the bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby. Along with the armored cruiser , Roon was assigned to the van of the High Seas Fleet, which was providing distant cover to Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers while they were conducting the bombardment. During the operation, Roon and her attached destroyers encountered the British screening forces; at 06:16, Roon came in contact with and , but no gunfire was exchanged and the ships turned away. Following reports of British destroyers from Roon as well as from , Admiral von Ingenohl ordered the High Seas Fleet to turn to port and head for Germany. At this point, Roon and her destroyers became the rearguard for the High Seas Fleet.

At 06:59, Roon, by this time joined by the light cruisers and Hamburg, encountered Commander Jones' destroyers. Jones shadowed Roon until 07:40, at which point Stuttgart and Hamburg were detached to sink their pursuers. At 08:02, Roon signaled the two light cruisers and ordered them to abandon the pursuit and retreat along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet. At 07:55, Beatty received word of Roon s location, and in an attempt to intercept the German cruisers, detached to hunt the German ships down, while his other three battlecruisers followed from a distance. By 09:00, Beatty had become aware that the German battlecruisers were shelling Hartlepool, so he decided to break off the pursuit of Roon and turn towards the German battlecruisers. Roon, along with Hamburg, Stuttgart, and the accompanying destroyers, remained in their rearguard position for the High Seas Fleet during the withdrawal to the safety of German ports.

Operations in the Baltic

Admiral Reinhard Scheer decided that because Roon and the other armored cruisers of the III Scouting Group were slow and lacked thick enough armor, they were unsuitable for service in the North Sea. Therefore, after April 1915, she operated in the Baltic Sea, participating in several bombardment missions. On 11 May, the British submarine spotted Roon and several other ships en route to Libau, which had been recently captured by the German army. E9 fired five torpedoes at the German flotilla; two passed closely astern of Roon while the other three missed their targets as well. On 2 July 1915, Roon participated in a battle with Russian cruisers off the shores of Gotland, Sweden. 'The light cruiser Augsburg and three destroyers were escorting the minelaying cruiser when they were attacked by four Russian cruisers—the armored cruisers Bayan, Admiral Makarov, and light cruisers Bogatyr and Oleg. Augsburg escaped while the destroyers covered the retreat of the Albatross, which was severely damaged and forced to seek refuge in neutral Swedish waters. Roon and the light cruiser Lübeck sortied to relieve the beleaguered German destroyers. Upon arriving at the scene, Roon engaged Bayan, and Lübeck opened fire on Oleg. Shortly thereafter, the Russian cruiser Rurik, along with a destroyer, arrived to reinforce the Russian flotilla. In the following artillery duel, Roon was hit several times, and the German ships were forced to retreat.

On 10 August, Roon and shelled Russian positions at Zerel on the Sworbe Peninsula. There were several Russian destroyers anchored off Zerel; the German cruisers caught them by surprise and damaged one of them.

Later service

On 16 February 1916, Roon was mistakenly reported as having been captured by a British cruiser in the North Atlantic. The ship was also mistakenly reported to have taken part in the Battle of Jutland as the flagship of the screening force for the main body of the High Seas Fleet. This mistake appeared in historical works published shortly after the First World War, but later works have corrected it.

In November 1916, Roon was disarmed and converted into a training and accommodation ship. Stationed at Kiel, she served in this capacity until 1918. Plans to convert Roon into a seaplane tender did not come to fruition, primarily because the German Navy relied on zeppelins for aerial reconnaissance, not seaplanes. Roon was struck from the naval register on 25 November 1920 and scrapped the following year.

Notes

1. "SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German.
2. Rüger p. 160
3. Staff, p. 15
4. Scheer, p. 69
5. Massie, p. 340
6. Massie, p. 340–341
7. Massie, p. 342
8. Massie, p. 343
9. Scheer, p. 135
10. Polmar and Noot, p. 40.
11. Corbett and Newbolt, p. 62
12. Pavlovich, p. 145
13. Hart, p. 365
14. Tucker pp. 293–294
15. Smith p. 350
16. Stevens and Westcott, p. 390
17. Tarrant, Appendix II
18. Gardiner and Gray, p. 142

Footnotes

1. "SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German.
2. Rüger p. 160
3. Staff, p. 15
4. Scheer, p. 69
5. Massie, p. 340
6. Massie, p. 340–341
7. Massie, p. 342
8. Massie, p. 343
9. Scheer, p. 135
10. Polmar and Noot, p. 40.
11. Corbett and Newbolt, p. 62
12. Pavlovich, p. 145
13. Hart, p. 365
14. Tucker pp. 293–294
15. Smith p. 350
16. Stevens and Westcott, p. 390
17. Tarrant, Appendix II
18. Gardiner and Gray, p. 142

References