Cover of the day 3rd June - SMS Hannover

[Alan Baker]

I am attaching a scan of a cover posted in July 1913 from SMS Hannover in Skagen, Denmark. The ship visited the port during the annual fleet manoeuvres and cruise to Norway by the Kaiser in the Royal Yacht Hollenzollern

SMS Hannover was a pre-Dreadnought battleship, launched in 1905. She was obsolete before completion. She was part of II Geschwader of the High Seas Fleet, one of the "Five Minute Ships", so called because it was reckoned that would be how long it would take the Royal Navy to deal with their threat. She was present at Jutland but took virtually no part in the action, expending only 8 rounds of her main 11in armament, mostly at supposed sightings of submarines on the morning of 1st June.

At the end of the war, she was retained by Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, but was decommissioned in 1936 and broken up towards the end of WWII.