The Imperial Navy - Photographic Reminiscences of the Summer Voyage and the World Cruise of SMS Viktoria Luise in the years 1909 - 1910.
Original photo collection, probably of a deck petty officer of SMS Victoria Louise.
SMS Victoria Luise
Die SMS Victoria Luise war ein Panzerdeckkreuzer der Kaierlichen Marine. Nach diesem Schiff wurde eine bestimmte Klasse von insgesamt fünf Kreuzern II. Klasse benannt.
The ship bore the name of the daughter of Emperor Wilhelm II: Viktoria Luise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte of Prussia.
Alongside SMS Victoria Luise the following ships were part of the class: Hertha, Freya, Vineta and Hansa.
The said ship was built on April 9, 1896 by the Bremen shipyard AG Weser.
The launch took place on March 29, 1897.
In 1899 the ship was reclassified as a large cruiser.
According to Hans Jürgen Hansen (Die Schiffe der Deutschen Flotten 1848 - 1945, Augsburg 1899, p. 94) these ships displaced 5,660 tons, were 110 m long (note: SMS Vineta and Hansa were longer) and made about 19 knots.
The armament consisted of two 21-cm, eight 15-cm, ten 8.8-cm quick-firing guns, ten machine guns and three torpedo tubes.
The crew consisted of 31 officers and 446 men. As a training ship the crew numbered 658 to 684 men.
On February 20, 1899 SMS Victoria Luise was commissioned and initially served with the I Squadron. In October 1903 the ship was assigned to the II Squadron for a short time.
Afterwards SMS Victoria Luise took part in fleet maneuvers in the Baltic and North Seas and was decommissioned on December 12, 1903.
After various refits SMS Victoria Luise was reactivated as a training ship in 1908 and from that time took on ship's boys and naval cadets.
This was followed by various summer voyages—mostly training cruises in the Baltic Sea—and world cruises. The first voyages took place in 1908.
In 1909 the ship visited New York and took part in the celebrations on the occasion of the first navigation of the Hudson as well as the inauguration of scheduled service between New York and Albany with the steamboat Clermont, built by Robert Fulton in 1807, three hundred years earlier. From this voyage SMS Victoria Louise returned to Kiel on March 10, 1910
SMS Victoria Luise was — since no longer up to date — decommissioned shortly after the outbreak of the World War and served as a mine depot. After the end of the war it was converted into a freighter from 1920. It was thereafter called "Flora Sommerfeld".
In 1923 the ship was finally scrapped in Danzig
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