CotD #4 - SMS Baden

[Alan Baker]

Keeping with the international theme, this card was sent in August 1917 by a sailor on SMS Baden. This ship was at the time the largest and most powerful in the Kriegsmarine, 32,200 tons and        8 - 15in guns. However, she saw little action in the war, still being under construction at the time of Jutland, and, in April 1918, the only major sortie she took part in ended without combat.

At the end of the war she was interned in Scapa Flow and on 21st June 1919 her crew attempted to scuttle her, in accordance with the general order, but she was boarded by British sailors and beached. She was later refloated and was sunk as a target in 1921.

The card bears the usual Marine Schiffpost stamp and the writer, as is often the case with German sailors, obligingly wrote the name of the ship on the card.