Survivors from the German Cruiser SMS Emden - a Captain (Hellmuth von Mucke), 3 officers and 30 men at Constantinople, Turkey - 5th May 1915. A prelude to this scene was The Battle of Cocos, which took place on 9 November 1914 during the First World War off the Cocos Islands, in the north east Indian Ocean. The SMS Emden attacked the British cable station on Direction Island and was engaged (and sunk) several hours later by the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney. The survivors from Emden were captured and Emden was destroyed. Some 230 of Emden's survivors were transferred from Sydney to the SS Empress of Russia for transport to Colombo. In the meantime, von Mucke and his men (who had come onshore from the Emden prior to the final battle) had seized the three-masted schooner Ayesha, moored in the lagoon, and some supplies. They made for Padang on Sumatra, in the neutral territory of the Dutch East Indies, where they rendezvoused with a German merchant vessel on the 13th December. Mucke's party made their way to Turkey by way of the Red Sea (en route back to Germany), arriving on 5th May 1915, as shown in this photograph.