Abosso (ship, 1935)
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The Abosso (II) was a 1935 passenger ship of the British shipping company Elder Dempster & Company , which carried passengers and cargo from Great Britain to South Africa and back. On October 29, 1942, the unescorted Abosso was sunk by the German submarine U 575 on the way to Liverpool about 1090 kilometers northwest of the Azores . 362 passengers and crew members were killed.
The ship
The 11,300 GRT motor ship Abosso was built in 1935 at the traditional shipyard Cammell, Laird & Company in the English port city of Birkenhead . The Abosso was launched on the River Mersey on June 19, 1935 and was completed on September 8 of the same year. Her owner was a 1852 African Steamship Company shipping company founded Elder Dempster Lines Limited, focusing on passenger and cargo traffic to the United States and Canada , but also to exotic places such as North Africa , the Caribbean , the Canary Islands and India had specialized .
She was the second ship of this name after the 7,782 GRT Abosso put into service in 1912 , which was sunk on April 24, 1917 at Fastnet Rock by the German submarine U 43 on a crossing to Liverpool. 65 people were killed. The second Abosso was 139.29 meters long, 19.81 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 9.75 meters. Its two diesel engines developed 7,200 hp and allowed a speed of 15 knots (27.8 km / h). The passenger capacity was 251 passengers in the first, 74 in the second and 332 in the third class.
Sinking
On Saturday, 10 October 1942, the put Abosso in Cape Town under the command of Captain William Reginald Tate to a crossing as a troop transport to Liverpool from. With a top speed of 15 knots , the Abosso was actually too slow for a crossing as a single driver and should have driven in a convoy. The Dutch submarine commander Luitenant ter zee 1st class Henry C. J. Coumou explicitly warned against this and originally refused to let the Abosso cover the long, dangerous journey as a single driver. However, he was unable to assert himself against the British authorities and the Abosso ultimately had to start the trip as a single driver. On board were 162 crew members, 20 artillerymen to defend the ship and 210 passengers (including 149 soldiers, 44 internees and 17 civilians, including ten women with children), a total of 392 people. The cargo included 3,000 tons of wool and mail bags .
Among the passengers was a 34-strong Dutch submarine crew who were supposed to take over the newly built Haai submarine . This boat had been built as a Varne for the Royal Navy and left to the Dutch Navy, which wanted to put it into service in April 1943 (after the loss of the Dutch crew due to the sinking of the Abosso , the boat was finally put into service by the Norwegian Navy as Ula posed). 44 newly trained pilots from the 23rd Service Flying Training School in Bulawayo ( Southern Rhodesia ) were also on board.
The journey was initially calm. On Thursday, October 29, 1942, the unescorted passenger ship was sighted by U 575 about 1,090 kilometers northwest of the Azores island of Terçeira . U 575 was a German type VII C submarine that was under the command of the 28-year-old Lieutenant Günther Heydemann on its sixth patrol .
U 575 sighted the Abosso at 14:33 hrs CET , with the very tight fuel supply on the way to a meeting with a supplier and had to drive the advance maneuver as economically as possible. The pursuit should have been broken off no later than 10:00 p.m. CET in order to retain the opportunity to meet the supplier. Shortly after 10:00 p.m. CET, the U 575 staggered forward with the utmost force when the Abosso unexpectedly jagged at U 575 and Heydemann fired a four-fan at 1,200 meters at 10:13 p.m. CET, from which a torpedo hit the port side of the Ship met. The Abosso stopped and remained with increasing list. As she continued to swim, a catch shot was fired at 10:29 p.m. CET . At 11:05 p.m. CET, the Abosso sank over the stem . At the sinking point at position 48 ° 30 ′ N , 28 ° 50 ′ W, ten cutters and 15 to 20 rafts were drifting, all full of soldiers in khaki uniforms. 151 crew members, 18 artillerymen and 193 passengers were killed in the sinking, including the captain. A total of 362 people died, including the German writer Ulrich A. Boschwitz . Luitenant Coumou, who had warned against the crossing as a lone driver, was one of the survivors.
The warship Bideford the Royal Navy under the command of Lieutenant Commander William Josselyn Moore was held on November 2, 1942 - 36 hours after the sinking - the lifeboat No. 5. It was during the sinking of the. Abosso crashed and sprung a leak. Nevertheless, it was still buoyant and was able to maintain contact with other lifeboats during the night. It contained 31 people (twelve crew members, two artillerymen and 17 passengers, including three civilians). These were the only survivors of the Abosso sinking . The Bideford took them to Londonderry . Only one of the ten women on board survived the attack.
Web links
- Facts about the last voyage of the Abosso in the submarine database
- The sinking of the Abosso in a list of war losses in World War II
- Technical and historical data about the Abosso
- The Abosso in a listing of her shipping company's ships
- Facts about the last trip of the Abosso on the website about U 575
Footnotes
- ↑ COMPLEMENT of the MVABOSSO (PDF; 9 kB) Retrieved on July 3, 2010.
- ^ U 575's war diary