The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands | |
---|---|
Directed by | Walter Summers |
Written by | Frank Bowden John Buchan Merritt Crawford Harry Engholm |
Produced by | Harry Bruce Woolfe |
Cinematography | Jack Parker Stanley Rodwell |
Production company | |
Distributed by | British Instructional Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 107 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £18,000 [1] |
The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands is a 1927 British docudrama film directed by Walter Summers. The film focuses on the naval warfare around the Battle of Coronel and Battle of the Falkland Islands during the First World War. [2] It was the last in a successful series of documentary reconstructions of First World War battles by British Instructional Films made between 1921 and 1927. [3] The film was produced at Cricklewood Studios and on location off Malta and the Isles of Scilly. The film is an entirely fictional recreation with a strong documentary feel.
The film cost an estimated £18,000 to make. It grossed £70,000 in Britain alone. [4] It was restored and re-released by the BFI in 2014.
In 2014 the BFI National Archive restored the film for the centenary of the events with a new score composed by Simon Dobson. [5]
On 1 November 1914, off the coast of Chile near Coronel, ships of the German and British navies exchanged fire resulting in the sinking of two British ships HMS Monmouth and HMS Good Hope with the loss of nearly 1,600 sailors. To counter the German squadron, the Royal Navy sent two battle-cruisers - Inflexible and Invincible - to the South Atlantic. In December 1914, the British battle-cruisers, accompanied by smaller ships, engaged the German squadron during the Battle of the Falkland Islands and sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau near the Falkland Islands.
The Battle of Coronel was a First World War naval battle that led to an Imperial German Navy victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and overpowered a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.
SMS Scharnhorst was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her class, which included SMS Gneisenau. Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.
The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a First World War naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the German cruiser squadron. The battle is commemorated every year on 8 December in the Falkland Islands as a public holiday.
HMS Good Hope was one of four Drake-class armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy around 1900; she was originally named Africa, but was renamed before she was launched. She became flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet in 1906, and was the flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron in 1908. She was reduced to reserve in 1913, but was recommissioned in mid-1914.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet was a Royal Navy officer. After training as a torpedo officer, he commanded two different cruisers and then three different battleships before becoming commander of the 1st Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet. He went on to command the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and then the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
SMS Leipzig was the sixth of seven Bremen-class cruisers of the Imperial German Navy, named after the city of Leipzig. She was begun by AG Weser in Bremen in 1904, launched in March 1905 and commissioned in April 1906. Armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes, Leipzig was capable of a top speed of 22.5 knots.
HMS Warrior was a Warrior-class armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was stationed in the Mediterranean when the First World War began and participated in the pursuit of the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and light cruiser SMS Breslau. Warrior was transferred to the Grand Fleet in December 1914 and remained there for the rest of her career. She was heavily damaged during the Battle of Jutland in 1916, after which she withdrew and was later abandoned and sank in a rising sea.
Rear Admiral Sir Christopher George Francis Maurice Cradock was an English senior officer of the Royal Navy. He earned a reputation for great gallantry.
HMS Monmouth was the name ship of her class of 10 armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The ships were also known as the County Cruisers.
HMS Glasgow was one of five ships of the Bristol sub-class of the Town-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. Completed in 1910, the ship was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet before she was assigned to patrol the coast of South America. Shortly after the start of the First World War in August 1914, Glasgow captured a German merchant ship. She spent the next several months searching for German commerce raiders. The ship was then ordered to join Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock's squadron in their search for the German East Asia Squadron. He found the German squadron on 1 November off the coast of Chile in the Battle of Coronel. They outnumbered Cradock's force and were individually more powerful, sinking Cradock's two armoured cruisers, although Glasgow was only lightly damaged.
The German East Asia Squadron was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China.
HMSBlack Prince was a Duke of Edinburgh-class armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the early 1900s. She was stationed in the Mediterranean when the First World War began and participated in the pursuit of the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and light cruiser SMS Breslau. After the German ships reached Ottoman waters, the ship was sent to the Red Sea in mid-August to protect troop convoys arriving from India and to search for German merchant ships. After capturing two ships, Black Prince was transferred to the Grand Fleet in December 1914. She was sunk on 1 June 1916 during the Battle of Jutland with the loss of all hands.
During World War I, conflict on the Asian continent and the islands of the Pacific included naval battles, the Allied conquest of German colonial possessions in the Pacific Ocean and China, the anti-Russian Central Asian revolt of 1916 in Russian Turkestan and an the Ottoman-supported Kelantan rebellion in British Malaya. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed Siege of Qingdao in China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka and Toma in German New Guinea.
HMS Dartmouth was a Town-class light cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s. She was one of the Weymouth sub-class of the Town class. The ship survived the First World War and was sold for scrap on 13 December 1930.
The Königsberg class was a group of four light cruisers built for the German Imperial Navy. The class comprised four vessels: SMS Königsberg, the lead ship, SMS Nürnberg, SMS Stuttgart, and SMS Stettin. The ships were an improvement on the preceding Bremen class, being slightly larger and faster, and mounting the same armament of ten 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns and two 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes.
The Raid on Yarmouth, on 3 November 1914, was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British North Sea port and town of Great Yarmouth. German shells only landed on the beach causing little damage to the town, after German ships laying mines offshore were interrupted by British destroyers. The British submarine HMS D5 was sunk by a German mine as it was leaving harbour to attack the German ships. A German armoured cruiser was sunk after striking two German mines outside its home port.
The Battle of Más a Tierra was a World War I sea battle fought on 14 March 1915, near the Chilean island of Más a Tierra, between a British squadron and a German light cruiser. The battle saw the last remnant of the German East Asia Squadron destroyed, when SMS Dresden was cornered and scuttled in Cumberland Bay.
Admiral John Luce, was a senior officer in the Royal Navy during and after the First World War. He played a significant role in the early development of British naval aviation and held command during the Battle of Coronel and the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
The German commerce raiders of World War I were surface vessels used by the Imperial German Navy for its Handelskrieg, a campaign against Allied seaborne trade. The ships comprised warships, principally cruisers, stationed in the German colonial empire before the war began, express liners commissioned as auxiliary cruisers and later, freighters outfitted as merchant raiders. These vessels had a number of successes and had a significant effect on Allied naval strategy, particularly in the early months of the war.
Emil Fritz Lüdecke was a German Rear Admiral who served the Imperial German Navy known for being the first commander of the SMS Karlsruhe as well as the last commander of the SMS Dresden.