Apel's Kibata Gun
(Dar Es Salaam-Rufiji-Kibata)
"On the second day an English steamer anchored and we immediately opened fire."
Oberleutnant z.S. Hans Apel, Commander of the Kibata Gun

10.5cm SMS Königsberg Gun on the Move, c1916
Photo by Walther Dobbertin © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv
 

Deployment to Dar Es Salaam
This gun was originally one of the cupola guns on the SMS Königsberg and therefore had no barrel flange. After being salvaged and cleaned up it was deployed along with four other guns for the defence of Dar Es Salaam from July 1915. The gun was commanded by one of the original Königsberg gunnery officers, Oberleutnant z.S. Hans Apel.

Retreat to the Rufiji
In March 1916 a successful British and South African offensive was opened in the North of the colony forces broke the Schutztruppe lines. Two of the Dar Es Salaam guns eventually sent North to fight the advancing allies at Kilimanjaro and Kondoa-Irangi with a third being sent to Bagamoyo in August. This left only Apel and Wenig's guns to defend Dar Es Salaam.

Apel described the guns actions in his memoirs-

"It was not until the end of July that enemy cruisers began to fire on Dar Es Salaam. The bombardments were primarily aimed at our battery positions and the railway lines. No notable successes were achieved. No doubt it was the enemy's intention to turn our artillery. After we had sent yet another gun to the front (the Bagamoyo gun), only two mobile guns remained. With them were able to stop two English landing attempts North of Dar Es Salaam. When in mid-August 1916, the enemy had taken over the central railway from Dar Es Salaam to Kigoma it became clear to us that the time was imminent to leave Dar Es Salaam itself. At the end of August, I left with the two remaining guns in the direction of the Rufiji."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

Apel's gun was fitted with one of the gun carriages made in Dar Es Salaam from farm machinery and traction engine parts and preparations were made for its withdrawal.

"For the transportation of two guns we needed 400 blacks (African porters) plus another 100 to carry 100 rounds of ammunition. At this time we also recognized the limitation of our guns. Accordingly, the idea of allocating a gun to a fast moving formation had to be abandoned. The gun's deployment could only be to areas where our troops were in a fixed position for a long period of time and would change only slowly. After the evacuation of Dar Es Salaam, the company moved into a first position about 10km south of the city and was followed two days later by the guns."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

African Porters in German Service at Rest
Photo © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

From Dar Es Salaam the two guns went South to the Delta of the River Rufiji, where the SMS  Königsberg had been scuttled a year before.

"An imminent landing of English troops and a subsequent attack was expected at Utete, south of the Rufiji, so we brought the two guns into positions there from which all advancing routes could be covered with by their fire. As it happened, the enemy landed in Kilwa and forged towards the Kibata Mountains, probably with the intention of cutting off the Southbound trekking routes. Since the expected attack failed to materialize, one of the two guns was withdrawn to the south to Lindi (the gun later captured at Mahiwa)."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

Apel's gun however remained in the Rufiji Delta with the intention of harassing British shipping.

"For the remaining gun I was ordered to explore a position at the Rufiji Delta from where it might be possible to fire on English steamer traffic in the Mafia Channel. The gun was then loaded and placed in position with some difficulty on an island in the mouth of the River Kiomboni."

"On the second day an English steamer anchored and we immediately opened fire. We scored several hits but the steamer quickly withdrew from the range of our gun. We expected little enemy traffic for the next few days. I consequently loaded the gun up again and took it upstream to Mohoro."

"From there it was ordered to the Kibata Mountains to join Abteilung Otto. As the terrain was very hilly and had to be accomplished with any technical aids we had to recruit another 100 blacks (African porters) in addition to our existing 200 strong crew."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

Apel then describes the adjustments to the gun needed for use in a land campaign. Up until this point, although it had been deployed on land for a year, it had only ever been used for firing at targets at sea.

"Now it was time to adapt to new shooting ratios for use on land. Our guns lacked some technical tools that were installed on land guns from the outset. For the lateral adjustment of the gun we fired alongside our 7.5cm guns (presumably the 7.5cm Gebirgskanone M08 that had been brought from Germany on the SS Marie in 1916). After determining this direction we could then detect further targets by lateral improvements to our gun."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

7.5cm Mountain Gun with crew in German East Africa c1917
Photo by Wilhelm Erhart © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

The Battle of Kibata
The Germans had a fort at Kibata which with the mountainous terrain made an allied assault on its position difficult. Von Lettow-Vorbeck intended to fight a delaying action here to halt the  advance that the allies had been making throughout 1916. With the gun settled into its new position, it began to sporadically shell allied positions to their north. The shortage of ammunition available to the Königsberg guns meant that they were never able to provide constant bombardment of their targets.

"After the completion of a telephone line through the densest bush to our main control room, an enemy positions and supply routes were then almost daily under fire. Over the Christmas holidays in 1916, it remained very quiet except for small shootouts."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

What may have appeared as a small shootout from Apel's point of view was not reported as such on the receiving end. Major Lewis of the British Indian 129th Baluchis wrote to his mother after enduring shelling from the Königsberg gun near Kibata-

“An hour before dark, this developed into an intense bombardment, and except for the size of the shells, I never experienced such a hot one, even in France . We lost heavily in the redoubt however our men stuck it like heroes, though there was little left of the trenches”.
(Original Quotation from the Letters of Major Lewis on Kaiser's Cross)

Kibata was never intended as a divisive battle by von Lettow-Vorbeck, only a delaying action and if he maintained his force there, they risked be outflanked and encircled. He therefore withdraw much of his army further south. Apel described it-

"Then Oberst von Lettow-Vorbeck was forced to march with the majority of his companies to stop enemy's advance elsewhere. The few remaining companies and our 10.5 cm gun could only stay a short time with our opponents reinforcing."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

German Officers, NCOs and Askaris on the march
Photo © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

By this time the British had moved their artillery into superior positions and were able to shell the German fort which was not constructed to withstand shellfire. The fort was abandoned.

"We were eventually forced to abandon our positions under sustained nightly battles. Since a road was not available, our blacks pitched a path through the dense bush, and then dragged the gun into a new position in the late afternoon. Since we were in a wild poor area, we were no longer able to send the necessary meat diet to these hard-working natives. Thus their strength was sapped and I was forced after several days to blow up the gun."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

The gun as it was found near Kibata, January 1917

Capture of the Gun
The gun was found by soldiers of the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchi Regiment, a British Indian unit. A report in the London Gazette recorded that "Our troops reached Mohoro on the South Rufiji Delta on 16th January and found a 4.1inch naval gun abandoned by the enemy some distance South of it".
(Original quotation from Supplement to the London Gazette, 18th April 1917)

Although the gun appears from photographs to have been captured in a relatively intact condition it does not seem to have been used for display unlike many of the other guns. It was perhaps deemed too heavy to move and simply left where it was found. According to the local historian Kevin Patience-

"Stories circulated for years of other guns seen in remote areas of the bush. In the 1970's the author heard the story of an abandoned gun that had been found by a game warden in a river bed in one of the Tanzanian Parks, but its inaccessibility meant that it remained where it was".
(Original quotation from "Königsberg- A German East African Raider" by Kevin Patience, Zanzibar Press 2001)

It is possible that some small parts of Apel's gun may have been salvaged as trophies but as the gun had no barrel flange and had a locally made carriage we know for certain that it does not constitute any major part of the guns currently on display in either Pretoria or Mombasa.