What happened at the Battle of Penang?
Just before dawn on 28 October 1914 the German light cruiser SMS Emden, disguised with a false fourth funnel, slipped into the harbor of Penang in British Malaya. She torpedoed the Russian cruiser Zhemchug, which blew up and sank, and on her way out sank the French destroyer Mousquet. Not one man on the Emden was wounded.1
In the autumn of 1914 the German light cruiser SMS Emden was loose in the Indian Ocean, and on 28 October her captain, Karl von Müller, tried his boldest stroke: a raid into the harbor of Penang, an island port of British Malaya where Allied warships lay at anchor.
The false funnel
The Emden had three funnels. For the raid Müller rigged a dummy fourth funnel, so that in the half light she would pass for a British cruiser. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org writes that she was made to look like a British Weymouth-class cruiser, and The Star of Malaysia names HMS Yarmouth. A pilot boat at the harbor entrance paid her no attention. The Star dates the start of the attack to about 4.30 in the morning.2
The Zhemchug is caught
Inside lay the Russian protected cruiser Zhemchug, of about 3,100 tons, there for maintenance as part of an Allied force protecting the trade routes. She was not ready to fight. According to Rickard, her captain was ashore in the town, most of her crew were below decks, only twelve shells were at the guns and no lookout was posted.3
Once inside, the Emden hoisted the German naval ensign and fired a torpedo from about 300 yards. It struck the Zhemchug below the waterline. The German guns then raked her forecastle, where men were sleeping. A second torpedo struck below the bridge; she blew up, broke in two and sank.4
The Mousquet's last fight
The Emden then headed out to sea. A fast boat coming in from the harbor mouth drew her fire until the Germans saw that it was only a government pilot vessel. Then the Emden met the French destroyer Mousquet, returning from a patrol. Her two torpedoes missed, and the Emden's salvos sank her after a short fight. The Germans stopped to pick up the survivors, 36 seamen and one officer, before escaping south.5
Other Allied ships in the harbor, including the French torpedo gunboat D'Iberville and two destroyers, could do nothing to stop her. A steamer flying the warning flag for explosives, the Glenturret, escaped into the port during the fight with the Mousquet.6
Casualties
Not one man aboard the Emden was wounded. The Russian losses are given differently. The Star puts them at 89 dead and over 130 wounded. A Penang history blog, describing the memorial to the ship, counts 82 of the 348 crew killed and quotes the colony's chief medical officer, who reported 131 cases brought to the hospital. Of the Mousquet's crew, the Emden rescued 36 seamen and one officer.7
Rickard adds that the Zhemchug's captain was stripped of his commission and jailed.8
Why Penang mattered
The raid did little to prolong the Emden's career. Less than two weeks later, on 9 November 1914, the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney caught her at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and after a gun battle of more than an hour the Emden was driven ashore. That fight is told on 9 November in history.9
In Penang the dead are still remembered. Most of the Russian sailors were buried in the Western Road Cemetery, and the graves of three more were found by chance on Pulau Jerejak in 2005. According to the same Penang history blog, a granite memorial with an Orthodox cross and an anchor, made in the Soviet Union, was unveiled there in December 1975.10
