[Sailor Steve]

April 25:

German East Africa: HMS Hyacinth patrols the South Mafia Channel to Tirene and back to Niororo Island. HMS Kinfauns Castle covers the area from Kibondo Anchorage to Aldabra Island. HMS Weymouth is still on station at the Rufiji Delta.

HMS Laconia departs Niororo Island at 0520 hours, and procedes to Kilindini, anchoring there at 0710. At 1010 one of the three Short Seaplanes takes off on a reconnaisance flight. Flight Commander John T. Cull and his observer, Air Mechanic Ebenezer Henry Alexander Boggis, find SMS Königsberg at the western end of the Simba Uranga, in the company of several small supply vessels. As they fly over at an altitude of 1200 feet a sudden downdraft forces the Short to 700 feet, exposing them to heavy fire from Konigsberg's 5cm guns. Cull is surprised at the German cruiser's condition. They had thought the ship was in bad shape, and in a deteriorated condition. Instead she looks as if ready for sea.
"She looked as though she had been newly painted. Her side-screens and awnings were spread, smoke was issuing from her funnels and in general she was looking very spic-and-span."

The Short's engine begins to falter, and after they overfly the wrecks of Newbridge and Somalia it quits entirely. Cull manages to land within a few hundred yards of Laconia. The plane has been hit several times and the main oil line is severed.