Battle of Cocos 1914
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 9 November 1914 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1914 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Nearest landmass | At sea (nearest continent: Asia) | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | World War I | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | -11.8333, 96.8167 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Cocos was a single-ship action that occurred on 9 November 1914, after the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, under the command of John Glossop, responded to an attack on a communications station at Direction Island by the German light cruiser SMS Emden, commanded by Karl von Müller.
After the retreat of the German East Asia Squadron from Southeast Asia, Emden had remained behind to function as a commerce raider. During a two-month period, the German cruiser captured or sank 25 civilian vessels, shelled Madras, and destroyed two Allied warships at Penang. In early November, von Müller decided to attack the communications station at Direction Island, in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, to hamper Allied communications and frustrate the search for his ship. Around the same time, a convoy of Europe-bound transports carrying Australian and New Zealand soldiers departed from Albany, Western Australia, with escorts HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Sydney, HMS Minotaur, and the Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki.
During the night of 8–9 November, Emden reached the islands and sent a party ashore at around 06:00 to disable the wireless and cable transmission station on Direction Island. The station was able to transmit a distress call before it was shut down.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Cocos (revision 1376719198), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Other battles of the World War I
- Action of 22 September 1914 1914
- Affair of Néry 1914
- Battle of Antivari 1914
- Battle of Arras (1914) 1914
- Battle of Coronel 1914
- Battle of Dornach (1914) 1914
- Battle of Galicia 1914
- Battle of Heligoland Bight (1914) 1914
- Battle of Kolubara 1914
- Battle of Kraków (1914) 1914
All 138 battles of the World War I →
Browse more: battles at sea · Asia · World War I era battles