Missing Gun from the SMS Königsberg

[Chris Dale]

I agree this story is still very interesting. I just bought this pic from eaby. We will publish one day!
Cheers
Chris

[CPT Bob]

Sorry for my long absence.

The "mystery gun" in the foreground is the gun that was captured at Itaga by the Belgians and it is displayed in Pretoria.

The standard Krupp carriage can be easily identified by the square steel-plate.

[Chris Dale]

Great to see you back here Bob!

[CPT Bob]

We missed the auction by a few years. It was sold on 12 June 2015. C'est la vie!

A World War I brass shell hung as a gong, with the inscription "Fired by First Konigsberg gun captured in East Africa, Soko Masai, March 21st 1916"


https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auct ... b200a24426

[CPT Bob]

Notice the distinctive wheels of the Limber used with the DAR carriages.

canon_1916.jpg (111.45 KiB) Viewed 10120 times

[CPT Bob]

Ammunition storage container. "Cordite case of SMS Konigsberg in Zanzibar Museum (Tanzania)"


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _shell.jpg

[CPT Bob]

Notice the Limber wheels with the Krupp carriage in SGT Southern's photo. They are most likely the ones seen in the "new" 3-gun photo.

[CPT Bob]

This is a relatively recent photo of two old howitzers that I understand was taken somewhere in Kisangani. They both survived difficult times (and they look very nice), therefore the Stanleyville Gun could still be hiding somewhere there.

[CPT Bob]

The location is "Place de Saio".

[Kallag]

Hi Bob,

Your comparison of the Itaga gun to the one in Pretoria is excellent.

What this means is that the gun displayed in Pretoria has always had a carriage made in German East and that the bulk of what we see on display today is authentic and not something slapped together after the war.
Pieces of steel were bolted to the original carriage to assist in displaying the gun, however these are minor and by far not what was initially thought.

I'm adding some more pics to support your comparison.

Pretoria gun with 'original' carriage

Pretoria gun in Dar Es Salaam

[CPT Bob]

I recognized the gun as soon as I first saw the photo. I still believe that it was constructed at the Tabora railway repair shop.

[CPT Bob]

Merry Christmas, Holger. No need for a bucket of paint-remover. You need to covertly scratch a few small chips in order to determine if the last digit is a "0", a "4" or a "5". Pretend that you are a "spy". Ha!

[CPT Bob]

The next time someone visits Tanzania, they should tell this story to one of their “local friends”.

A cannon was disabled by the Germans along the Selous-Kisaki Road at a place that the British referred to as “Mkuyuni”. A German who was with the gun when it was abandoned later wrote that 300 rounds of 10.5cm ammunition (100 canisters) which was accompanying the gun were cached in “nearby caves”.

South of Mangulubwida and north of the Ruvu River along the Selous-Kisaki Road is a village labeled as “Blechdachdorf”. This is in the vicinity of the location of “Mkuyuni”. The nearby terrain shows a series of long, thin rock outcroppings that could be described as “caves”. (I fly there often on “Google-Earth”.)

Was the cache ever recovered by the British after the war? There are many photos of the Gun that was recovered from the site, but I have not found any references to the “300 rounds of ammunition” that was cached there. Those canisters were sea-worthy and water-tight. If the cache was properly emplaced and camouflaged, it could still easily be there.

[Chris Dale]

Good work guys, merry christmas!
Cheers
Chris

[danebrog]

where fiction meets history...
Pratt, Corto Maltese:
https://itunes.apple.com/mt/book/corto- ... 9218?mt=11
Micheluzzi, Tanagyika:
http://www.aaapoumbapoum.com/?p=7361