On 9 December 1914, the light cruiser SMS Dresden dropped anchor in Sholl Bay, off the coast of Chile, and the crew began to stand down from alert. The ship’s commanding officer, Fregattenkapitän Fritz Lüdecke, ordered a survey of coal stock and for the wireless operators to listen for British pursuers and, more importantly, their squadron mate SMS Nürnberg in case it too had survived the decimation of the Ostasiatische Kreuzergeschwader (East Asia Cruiser Squadron) the previous day.
Since the commencement of the First World War four months earlier, Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee’s squadron, consisting of the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, accompanied by the light cruisers SMS Emden and Nürnberg, had been involved in a manhunt across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. By 13 October, Emden was…