.
Is it possible for the barrel to have been removed from the emplacement on 22 March 1916 and mounted directly onto a Krupp carriage? If so, within three days it easily could have been operational and re-positioned anywhere in the vicinity of Tanga until it was strategically withdrawn circa June 1916.
If a disassembled Krupp carriage (strapped to a pallet) arrived at the Tanga bahnhof, I would require about one hour, several men and several big tools in order to have the chassis rolling down the road toward the gun's location.
Several sources mentioned very clearly the very difficult transport of exactly this gun from Tanga to Daressalam with a team of oxen and a slide!
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The “Putini-Gun“ = (1. Kahe-Gun) in Tanga
If we come now to the second Koenigsberg-Gun in Tanga we have also (minimum) two positions available. I assume the
search on site for these locations will be probable more difficult than in the south of Tanga because of the mangroves-
and swamp area. As mentioned before, this Gun was present in Tanga from end of October 1915 up to 10. March 1916.
Hermann J. Müller mentioned in his memories that both Positions are connected by a 6 km long rail section. He stated also,
that
Position I is at “Putini village” in the `Tanga-Bay´ and
Position III at “Mtimbwani village” in the `Mansa-Bay´ / Manza
With these statements two general questions arise:
I.) When Müller mentioned a Position I and a Position III; – where is Position II?
Option A:
Position II is between I and III, but the location wasn´t mentioned and still unknown.
Option B:
Position II meant the second `Tanga-Gun´ at
Position Nyamjani (10.Massassi-Gun)
Option C:
Position II never existed and was maybe only planned.
II.) Müller and Schoenfeld explained that Position III (“Mtimbwani village”) is in the Mansa-Bay / Manza
(The same Bay where the blockade runner SMH `Rubens´ arrived half a year before, on 14. April 1915.)
The author of the German-Wikipedia-page for: Mansabucht (Manza-Bay)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansabucht
mentioned as source also a link about this bay and from a military point of view interesting historical search on site.
ROYAL NAVY HARBOUR DEFENCES - MANZA BAY, TANZANIA:
http://indicatorloops.com/manza.htm
But unfortunately without references of further relicts form the time period 1915/16. (But he were contacted and asked.)
This Google-map shows from North to South, Manza-Bay, Kwale-Bay and Tanga-Bay.
If the
Position I at Putini village was in the `Tanga-Bay´, the distance to
Position III at Mtimbwani village in `Mansa-Bay´with 6 km cannot be true.
.
“Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. . . . All History was a
palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary” – G. ORWELL 1984