War News:
1 June 1944:
- The Imperial Chinese Navy limits its submarine arm to fleet support.
10 June 1944:
- The German light cruiser
Konigsberg is torpedoed and sunk by the submarine S-141.
14 June 1944:
- Upon receiving word of the outbreak of war, and acting on his own initiative, the commodore commanding a cruiser squadron composed of the heavy cruiser
Yang Wei and the scout cruisers
Ching Yuan and
Tsao Chiang lands his ships' marine complements, supported by a number of sailors manning 5" guns removed from his cruisers, in the Bismarck Archipelago.
15 June 1944:
- The Navy commits the battleship
Ting Yuen and the light battlecruisers of the
Chih Yuan class to a blockade of Kiautschou Bay while the Army masses forces for an assault on the defenses.
27 June 1944:
- The heavy cruisers
Hertha and
Freya of the German East Asia Squadron run the blockade of Kiautshchou Bay carrying supplies and reinforcements for the garrison. Admiral Förste, commander of the East Asia Squadron, personally commands the cruisers for the operation.
7 July 1944:
- Admiral Förste receives orders to get his ships out of Kiautschou Bay and await reinforcements from the High Seas Fleet in Borneo. Förste plans to slip his cruisers past the Imperial Chinese Navy's blocking force on the night of the 17th and begins preparing his ships for departure.
- The Imperial Chinese Army, having massed sufficient forces to being the assault on the port, begins to aggressively probe the defenses of Tsingtao.
15 July 1944:
- Artillery fire from the front begins to threaten the port facilities and ships in the harbor. Admiral Förste accelerates his squadron's preparations for departure.
16 July 1944:
- Imperial Chinese Army field artillery begins to deliberately target ships in Kiautschou Bay, and Admiral Förste decides that his departure can be postponed no longer -
Hertha and
Freya will slip out of port that night.
17 July 1944:
- With the coming of daylight, the Imperial Chinese Navy discovers that
Hertha and
Freya have slipped out of port overnight and begins a search for the ships. A squadron centered on the battleship
Ting Yuen, then in port in Shanghai, is ordered to put to sea, and attempts are made to alert a second squadron centered on the light battlecruisers
Chih Yuan and
Chih Yang, patrolling the mouth of the Yellow Sea towards southern Korea, but communications mishaps leave these ships unaware that the German cruisers are at sea.
- At about 1300 local time, the light Chinese battlecruisers
Chih Yuan and
Chih Yang encounter the German heavy cruisers off the southern coast of Korea, and a battle soon commences, in which
Hertha and
Freya are both sunk and the Chinese ships left largely undamaged.
19 July 1944:
- The garrison of the Bismarck Archipelago surrenders.
20 July 1944:
- The destroyer
Lei Lung is torpedoed and sunk by
U-62.
11 August 1944:
- With the success of the invasion of the Bismarck Archipelago, the Imperial Chinese Navy begins planning a further invasion of the insular possessions of the German Empire.
21 August 1944:
- A flotilla of three German destroyers attacks a convoy just north of Formosa, but the seven
Lei Chien-class destroyers assigned to escort the convoy sink the attackers before any merchant ships can be damaged.
1 September 1944:
- The Imperial Chinese Navy lands one marine and one Imperial Army division in the Caroline Islands.
3 September 1944:
- The Chinese submarine S-132 torpedoes and sinks the German light cruiser Danzig near Borneo.
11 September 1944:
- The
Ning Yang class battlecruiser
Ning Yang commissions.
16 September 1944:
- The
Fu Po-class light cruiser
Tse Hai encounters and sinks a German destroyer during a routine patrol south of Formosa.
18 September 1944:
- The Army requests additional resources for the campaign to reclaim Tsingtao and liberate the Caroline Islands; the Navy accepts a reduction in funding in the hopes of decisive results from the Army's offensives.
8 October 1944:
- Perhaps hoping to save their concession of Kiautschou Bay, the German Empire suggests peace negotiations, but a combination of senior Imperial Chinese Navy and Army personnel scuttle the talks.
18 October 1944:
- The garrison of Tsingtao surrenders.
- The
Ning Yang-class battlecruiser
Fong Yang commissions.
4 November 1944:
- The battlecruisers
Lan Yuang,
Lai Yuan,
Hai An, and
Chao Yung are sent to bombard entrenchments on Truk, and
Lan Yang and
Lai Yuan briefly engage the German
Prinz Heinrich-class battlecruiser
Prinz Eitel Friedrich. In a propaganda coup for the German Empire,
SMS
Prinz Eitel Friedrich manages to evade destruction at the hands of the four Chinese battlecruisers and inflicts severe damage on
Lai Yuan, destroying both of
Lai Yuan's 16" turrets. Nevertheless, the Chinese battlecruisers drive
Prinz Eitel Friedrich into port and successfully bombard coastal installations on Truk.
12 November 1944:
- The Navy lays down two new
Lei Chien-class destroyers,
Lei Lung and
Kuang Chen, to be built by Clark Family Shipbuilding in the USA.
- S-129 reports torpedoing and damaging a German heavy cruiser.
16 December 1944:
- The German heavy cruiser SMS
Roon attacks a convoy bound for Hong Kong, escorted by the
Fu Po-class light cruisers
Tse Hai and
Fu Po. The Chinese light cruisers, abiding by Nelson's dictum that no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy, aggressively close the range on the German heavy cruiser, and are rewarded for their daring when
Roon goes dead in the water after a 6" hit knocks out electrical power and then explodes after a 6" shell penetrates a magazine.
18 December 1944:
- The Imperial Chinese Navy releases its submarine arm to raid the merchant shipping of the German Empire under prize rules.
12 January 1945:
- A German convoy escorted by the battleship SMS
Prinzregent Luitpold, the light cruiser
Nymphe, and four destroyers is attacked by the Chinese battlecruisers
Chao Yung and
Lai Yuan. The German convoy is almost completely destroyed, with only the severely-damaged destroyer G7 escaping the Chinese warships.
7 February 1945:
- The Imperial Chinese Navy lays down the
Lei Chien-class destroyer
Lei Gen, to be built by Clark Family Shipbuilding in the USA, four T-10 class destroyers to be built by Guangzhou Naval Arsenal, and 12 minesweepers to be built by the Kiangnan Shipyard.
10 February 1945:
- The last German Army forces defending the Caroline Islands surrender.
21 February 1945:
- The
Fu Po-class light cruiser
Yang Wu intercepts the German heavy cruiser SMS
Vineta, prowling the seas off Cochin China.
Yang Wu briefly attempts to engage the heavier warship, but accurate German gunfire leads
Yang Wu's captain to withdraw from the heavier German warship and wait for darkness, when the German ship will not be able to use the superior range of its 10" guns to destroy
Yang Wu before it can close the range. For better or worse, contact with
Vineta is lost in the twilight and both cruisers depart the scene of the brief engagement with only minor damage.
20 March 1945:
- The German light cruiser
Stettin is torpedoed and sunk by the submarine S-132.
2 April 1945:
- The Chinese submarine S-140 torpedoes and sinks the German destroyer G42.
13 May 1945:
- The German destroyer S17, sent to probe the defenses of Truk, is sunk by a Chinese cruiser force.
15 May 1945
- The battleship SMS
Brandenburg is torpedoed and sunk by S-138.
7 June 1945:
- The new Chinese battlecruisers
Ning Yang and
Fong Yang clash with the German battlecruiser SMS
Friedrich Carl just outside the harbor of Fort Bayard in Kwang-Chou-Wan. SMS
Friedrich Carl and the two destroyers accompanying it are sunk with little damage to Chinese warships, but the U-boat
U-58 torpedoes
Ning Yang just as the Chinese squadron prepares to begin recovering survivors from the German ships.
Ning Yang, fortunately, is only lightly damaged, but the submarine attack means that the German survivors will be left in the water for several more hours before coastal patrol craft arrive to recover them.
7 July - 15 August 1945:
- The USA invites German and Chinese representatives to Washington for mediation, and the resulting negotiations produce a peace agreement which formally goes into effect on the 15th of August. An informal truce is observed during the negotiations. The treaty allows the German Empire to keep those parts of its empire not occupied by China, but requires it to pay reparations for the war.