HMS Fifi (ex-SMS Kingani)

SMS Kingani was one of two small screw steamers built by Meyer-Werft at Papenburg in 1894 for use as customs cruisers on Lake Tanganyika in German East Africa. She displaced about 45 metric tons, measured roughly 17.8 m in length with a 3.65 m beam, and carried a crew of one officer and seven men. Kingani was lightly armed with a single 3.7 cm Hotchkiss revolver gun. After the outbreak of World War I, Kingani served in the German flotilla on Lake Tanganyika, alongside the armed vessel Hedwig von Wissmann and the larger steamship Graf von Götzen. On 26 December 1915 Kingani was engaged on the lake by two British motor launches (HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou) under Lt.-Cmdr. Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Unable to bring her bow gun to bear on the agile launches, Kingani was disabled by multiple hits and casualties, and her crew was forced to surrender. The British towed the damaged ship to their base at Lukuga, repaired her, and commissioned her into the Royal Navy as HMS Fifi. As HMS Fifi, she became the first German warship captured by the British in World War I. The vessel then joined the Allied flotilla on Lake Tanganyika. In early 1916 HMS Fifi participated in the sinking of the German vessel Hedwig von Wissmann after a fierce gun battle. She continued to serve as an Allied patrol and transport steamer on the lake. After the war, HMS Fifi carried passengers and supplies on Lake Tanganyika until being declared unseaworthy. She was scuttled in the lake in 1924.