Figure 1: "The Adler before the Hurricane," artwork by Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, contained in his personal journal of the Apia Hurricane. It shows the German gunboat SMS Adler at anchor in Apia Harbor prior to the storm and before she made heavy weather preparations. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Donation of Miss Elsie S. Kimberly, January 1958. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: SMS Adler prior to the hurricane at Apia, Samoa, 15-16
March 1889. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: Hurricane at Apia, Samoa, 15-16 March 1889. "Trenton dragging
along the reefs," artwork by Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, contained in
his personal journal of the Apia Hurricane. It shows USS Trenton during
the height of the storm, with her anchors dragging as she is pushed deeper into
Apia Harbor. Note that she is shown with steam up. Water entering through her
low hause pipes (visible at her bow) ultimately put out her fires, greatly
reducing her ability to survive the wind and waves. This illustration shows the
full fury of the hurricane at its height. Courtesy of the Naval Historical
Foundation. Donation of Miss Elsie S. Kimberly, January 1958. US Naval
Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5:
German gunboat SMS Adler overturned on the reef on the western side of
Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after the storm. Note her battered hull, well
for hoisting propeller, rescue buoy mounted on her stern, and decorative
windows painted on her quarters. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click
on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6:
German gunboat SMS Adler overturned on the reef on the western side of
Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, as crewmen begin salvage work soon after the storm. Note
men on her hull and upperworks, and canvas-covered gun on her poop deck. US Naval
Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7:
German gunboat SMS Adler overturned on the reef on the western side of
Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, during salvage work after the storm. Note the gun
mounted on her poop deck and bent propeller shaft visible at her stern. US Naval
Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8:
The German corvette SMS Olga survived the hurricane in better shape than Adler
and is seen beached on the eastern side of Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after the
storm. View looks to the northward. Note her damaged bow, crew's laundry drying
in the rigging, and lowered fore and main topmasts. US Naval Historical
Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9:
German corvette SMS Olga beached on the eastern side of Apia Harbor,
Upolu, Samoa, soon after the storm. Olga was part of the small task force sent
to take Samoa for Germany. Olga
survived the hurricane in much better shape than Adler. This view looks southwestward, with the wrecks of USS Trenton
and USS Vandalia in the left background. Note Olga's damaged bow. Her funnels and fore and main topmasts are in
lowered positions. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on
photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: Scene in Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after
the Samoan hurricane of 15-16 March
1889. The view looks southwestward, with USS Nipsic beached in
the foreground. Beyond her stern is USS Trenton (in the right center)
and the sunken USS Vandalia (in the center, alongside Trenton). US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: Scene in Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, circa late
March or early April 1889 during salvage efforts. View looks westerly, with USS
Nipsic undergoing repairs in the center. The upturned hull of German
gunboat SMS Adler is in shallow water beyond Nipsic. Courtesy of
the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Rear Admiral Richard G.
Davenport, USN, who was an officer of USS Nipsic during this time. US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12:
Wreck of the German gunboat SMS Adler at Apia, Upolu,
Samoa, circa 1938. She shows the effects of almost five decades of
deterioration since she went ashore during the great hurricane of 15-16 March
1889. Courtesy of Mrs. Joseph C. Van Cleve, 1979. US Naval Historical Center
Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
SMS (which stands for Seiner Majestät Schiff or His Majesty's Ship) Adler was built by the Imperial shipyard
at Kiel, Germany, and was commissioned in May 1885. Adler (which means “eagle” in German) was a 1,040-ton gunboat with
a composite iron and wooden hull. The ship was approximately 202 feet long and
28 feet wide, had a top speed of 11 knots, and had a crew of 133 officers and
men. Adler was armed with five
4.9-inch guns and five 1.5-inch guns.
In 1886, Adler was sent by the German Navy on a
mission to explore the Pacific islands and to protect German trading interests
in New Guinea and the Samoan Islands. In 1888, a civil war in Samoa threatened
the safety of the German immigrants, traders, and businessmen that were living
there. Using the safety of its citizens and property as a pretext for inserting
itself into the Samoan civil war, Germany sent the corvette SMS Olga and the gunboat SMS Eber to basically take over the islands.
These ships were soon joined by Adler.
But the
United States also had economic interests in Samoa as well as citizens living
there. The American government was not about to let Germany take over these
strategically significant islands, especially since it needed friendly ports
and coaling stations to maintain its flourishing trade with the Far East. So
the United States sent the US Navy’s Pacific Station flagship, USS Trenton, and the smaller gunboats USS Vandalia and USS Nipsic as a “show of force” to discourage Germany from making
further advances in Samoa. The German and American warships faced each other
for several months in the port of Apia, located on the northern coast of the
Samoan island of Upolu. This tense situation carried a very real risk of war
between the two countries. Complicating matters even more was the fact that the
Royal Navy corvette HMS Calliope was
also anchored in Apia Harbor, ostensibly looking after British “interests” on
the islands.
Just as it
looked like war between the United States and Germany could not be avoided,
fate stepped in. On 15 March 1889, a major hurricane (or cyclone, as they are
called in the Pacific) hit Samoa. Although the weather was clearly
deteriorating in the hours before the brunt of the storm smashed into the
islands, the senior American officer present, US Navy Rear Admiral Lewis A.
Kimberly, decided to keep his ships in the exposed and highly vulnerable Apia
Harbor. Evidently, he was told by the people on the island that hurricane
season had already ended and that this was just a storm. Unfortunately, they
were wrong. The force of the wind and waves was much greater than anyone
anticipated.
With the
exception of the relatively modern Calliope,
which was able with great difficulty to steam out of the harbor in the teeth of
the storm, the other ships’ anchors and engines were unable to withstand the high
winds and the gigantic waves. Eber,
the smallest of the warships present, was blown into a reef and destroyed, with
the loss of almost her entire crew. But in a feat of remarkable seamanship, Adler’s commanding officer used the wind
and the waves to lift the gunboat over the edge of a dangerous reef and into
shallow water. Adler eventually came
to a rest on her port side. Though the ship was a total wreck, most of the crew
survived. The American warship Vandalia
also suffered a heavy loss of life and was wrecked beyond any possibility of repair.
USS Trenton, whose steam power plant
was extinguished by water cascading into the ship, dragged her anchors to
stabilize her but was also wrecked, though losses among her crew were light. Olga and Nipsic were run ashore, but both were later re-floated and
repaired. The storm ended the next day on 16 March.
The shocking
damage caused by the storm, which took the lives of more than 50 American
sailors and Marines, and about 90 Germans, overwhelmed both Germany and the
United States. While traveling throughout the Pacific on a chartered yacht
named Casco , author
Robert Louis Stevenson witnessed the storm and its aftermath at Apia and later
wrote about what he saw. Eventually, a diplomatic settlement of the Samoan
crisis followed, though the islands’ internal problems did not end and foreign
intervention took place over the next decade. The Tripartite Convention of 1899
partitioned the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa. German Samoa remained in existence until
shortly after the start of World War I, when on 29 August 1914, New Zealand
troops (representing Great Britain) landed on Upolu and seized control from
German authorities. New Zealand granted independence to this territory, known
as Western Samoa, in 1962. This was the first small island country in the
Pacific to become independent. Western Samoa joined the Commonwealth of Nations
(an organization of 54 member states that were mostly territories of the
British Empire) on 28 August 1970. But to this day, American Samoa remains a US
Territory.
Within both
the US Navy and the German Navy, the Samoan hurricane was seen as something of
a “last gasp” of the age of wooden warships, which were equipped with full sail
rigging and moderate steam power. By 1889, modern steel warships with powerful
engines and ordnance were beginning to enter service and, over the next decade,
would almost completely displace the seagoing “relics” of the post-Civil War
era.
