Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 25, 2024
SMS Helgoland was a dreadnought battleship of the Imperial German Navy. Her design improved from the Nassau class, including an increase in the bore diameter of the main guns. Her keel was laid down at the Howaldtswerke shipyards in Kiel; she was launched on 25 September 1909, and commissioned on 23 August 1911. During World War I the ship participated in several sweeps into the North Sea as the covering force for the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against the Russian Navy, including serving as part of a support force during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. Helgoland was present at the Battle of Jutland from 31 May to 1 June 1916, though she was located in the center of the German line of battle and not as heavily engaged as the ships in the lead. She was ceded to Great Britain after the war and broken up for scrap in the early 1920s. Her coat of arms is preserved in the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden. (Full article...)