Aquileia (ship, 1913)
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The Aquileia was an originally Dutch combi ship , which from 1935 by the Italian Navy and from September 1943 by the German Navy as a hospital ship was used.
Construction and technical data
The ship was built in 1913 with the hull number 123 at the Nederlandse Maatschappij Scheepsbouw in Amsterdam to put Kiel and ran on 20 August 1913 as Prins der Nederlanden launched . It was the largest ship built in the Netherlands up to that point. The ship was put into service in January 1914 by the Stoomvaart Maatschappij "Nederland" with home port Amsterdam. It was 146.67 m ( LzdL ) or 151.78 m ( Lüa ) long and 17.43 m wide, had a 10.62 m draft and, at 9,201 GRT (later increased to 9,322 GRT after slight modifications), 5,511 NRT and a load capacity of 7,150 dwt . The machine system consisted of six coal-fired steam boilers and two four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engines from the Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen & Spoorwegmaterieel , Amsterdam, with an output of up to 6600 PSi and a speed of 14.5 knots via two shafts and propellers . The ship had space for a total of 352 passengers (140 in the first, 136 in the second, 34 in the third class and 42 in the tween deck ). In addition, the ship had a cargo capacity of almost 30,000 cubic meters of bulk goods or 27,500 cubic meters of bales .
history
Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland
The Prins der Nederlanden drove for the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland until 1930. When the shipping company put modern and larger motor ships into service in the years 1926–1930 , their older steamers became superfluous and in 1930 they were retired. The Prinses Juliana (1910, 8,085 GRT) and the Koningin der Nederlanden (1911, 8,280 GRT) were sold, the Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1915, 11,140 GRT) and the Johan de Witt (1922, 10,355 GRT) were kept in reserve, and the Prins der Nederlanden was launched .
From 1933 she was used again intensively - as a training ship for the city fire brigade of Amsterdam. The background to this was the devastating fire that raged for nine days on the Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft in November 1932 and completely destroyed it. As a result, fire fighting on large ships was given specific and intensive attention.
Lloyd Triestino
On June 25, 1935, the Prins der Nederlanden was bought by the semi-state Italian shipping company Lloyd Triestino and renamed Aquileia . However, it was not intended for use as a civilian passenger or station wagon because it had been bought for the planned Italian attack on the Abyssinian Empire . The ship was equipped with 700 beds and, after minor structural changes, was now measured at 9,448 GRT. After the Abyssinian War began on October 2, 1935 with the Italian declaration of war on Abyssinia , the Aquileia was initially chartered as a so-called wounded transporter by the Italian Navy , then requisitioned , and for the transport of troops and supplies through the Suez Canal to Eritrea and Italian Somaliland for the Italian army fighting in East Africa and used on the return journey to repatriate the wounded and sick. From December 1935 to 1937 the Aquileia undertook a total of 17 such journeys, transporting 4,138 soldiers and settlers to East Africa and 4,473 sick and wounded back to Naples.
Marina Regia
The ship was then officially equipped and registered as a hospital ship, given the appropriate paint (white with green stripes and red crosses along the side and red cross on the chimney) and together with the Cesarea , the Gradisca and the Helouan of the Italian Navy in Spanish Civil war used. In the period from March 1938 to June 1939 , the Aquileia brought 2063 soldiers for the Italian "Volunteer Corps" (" Corpo Truppe Volontarie ") to Spain and 5571 wounded and sick people back to Naples on a total of 11 round trips between Naples and Cádiz . Her last trip ended in Naples on June 21, 1939. After that, she was not returned to her shipping company, but hung up so that it could be used again as a hospital ship if necessary.
This case occurred in May 1940. The Aquileia was requisitioned again on May 25, 1940 in Naples and put into service as a hospital ship on June 13, 1940. It had 670 beds and a crew of 340 people, including 200 doctors and nurses. When Italy entered World War II on June 10, 1940 , the Aquileia and California were the only hospital ships in service in Italy.
The first war operation took place on June 18, 1940, when she evacuated the sick and wounded from Benghazi and Tobruk . Even at this point, their old machinery turned out to be very prone to failure, which often forced them to drive slowly and make long stays in the shipyard necessary. The ship sailed in the central and eastern Mediterranean and made a total of 84 trips with a total distance of around 63,000 nautical miles for the Regia Marina by September 8, 1943 . In these 81 transports of the wounded and three sea rescue companies , it transported a total of 12,799 wounded and 38,303 sick people who had been rescued from distress at sea . Of all the Italian hospital ships, she was the one with the most deployments.
In the course of these missions there were several unforeseen and sometimes dangerous incidents.
On the evening of December 9, 1940, the Aquileia collided with the troop transport Sardinia (with 3,000 Alpini destined for Vlora on board) due to strong winds while mooring in Bari after returning from Albania and was rammed shortly afterwards by the departing German cargo ship Ruhr ; this required repairs for 24 days.
On the evening of December 3, 1941, the Aquileia was attacked by a British torpedo bomber , although it was properly illuminated and recognizable, but was still able to just avoid the torpedo that was shot down. On December 15, 1941, the ship evacuated 581 wounded from the British-besieged Bardia in heavy weather . On January 23, 1942, it suffered considerable storm damage in the Strait of Sicily .
On September 3, 1942, the ship brought 20 German medics and 6 tons of medical supplies for the Africa Corps to Marsa Matruh . This was problematic insofar as the British cryptanalysts in Bletchley Park had knowledge of it through deciphering a German radio message and such a supply transport was not compatible with the Hague Conventions . On the same day, the Aquileia was attacked by torpedo bombers with torpedoes and machine gun fire, but without being hit. In November 1942, she was the last ship to leave Marsa Matruh before British troops took the place.
On the afternoon of April 26, 1943, the Aquileia was fired at by US aircraft with on-board weapons in good weather and clear visibility and suffered slight splinter damage. On April 29th, a similar attack by American planes took place without any real damage. During these days an Air Force pilot and a USAAF pilot were rescued from distress.
On April 30, 1943, the Aquileia took 111 men on board of the German destroyer ZG 3 Hermes , which was badly damaged by Allied bombers that morning at Cape Bon , which was then towed to La Goulette , but was sunk in the port entrance as a barrier on May 7th.
In May 1943, the ship was involved in the evacuation of the wounded, sick and nursing staff from Tunisia . After the Allied conquest of the ports of Tunis and Bizerta on May 7th, the last wounded were gathered on the beach at Kelibia , where the hospital ships Aquileia and Virgilio were to pick them up. The Aquileia took about 600 on board, but was attacked unsuccessfully with a bomb by a USAAF aircraft while flying low. Later that day she was stopped by the British destroyers Jervis , Nubian and Paladin , examined and then released with a warning not to visit these waters again.
After the Allies landed in Sicily , the ship was involved in the evacuation of the wounded from the island in July and August 1943. In July, the Aquileia , Virgilio and Toscana made five voyages, during which they made about 3,400 wounded and seriously ill Italians and Germans from the beaches at Sant'Agata di Militello and Ganzirri (north of Messina ), and in August the three ships made until the fall of Messina on August 17th, three more journeys with a total of 3,000 evacuees. The Aquileia was fired at by Allied aircraft with on-board weapons both on the 6th or 7th off Ganzirri and on August 16 near Gioia Tauro .
Navy
After the announcement of the Armistice in Cassibile on September 8, 1943 , the Aquileia was taken over by the Wehrmacht in the port of La Spezia on September 9, and on October 6 by the Navy again as a hospital ship with a mixed German-Italian crew posed. The first trip was to Oran for the purpose of a prisoner exchange. On October 27, the ship ran with several hundred New Zealand prisoners of war on board from Marseille to Barcelona , again for a prisoner exchange. Otherwise, the ship was used to transport troops along the French and Italian coasts.
In a bombing raid on Marseille on December 15, 1943 , Aquileia , which was lying on the quay , was also hit. It caught fire and had to be put on the ground. Lifting began on February 16, 1944, but it was in such poor condition that it was decommissioned. On June 26, 1944, it was sunk as a block ship in the port entrance of Marseille . The wreck was lifted in 1946 and scrapped in 1947.
literature
- Enrico Cernuschi, Maurizio Brescia, Erminio Bagnasco: Le navi ospedale italiane 1935–1945 , Albertelli Edizioni, Parma, 2010
- Volker Hartmann, Hartmut Nöldeke: Transporting the wounded across the sea; German hospital and wounded transport ships in World War II. (Small series of publications on military and naval history, Volume 20), Winkler, Bochum, 2010, ISBN 3-89911-142-7
Web links
- Stichting Maritiem-Historische Databank: Prins der Nederlanden , with many photos
- Photo: Launch of the Prins der Nederlanden
- Photo: The Prins der Nederlanden on the slipway when they are launched
- Photo: The Prins der Nederlanden on the slipway when they are launched
Footnotes
- ^ Stichting Maritiem-Historische Databank: Prins der Nederlanden
- ↑ The Shipslist: Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland / Netherlands Steamship Co.
- ^ Stichting Maritiem-Historische Databank: Prins der Nederlanden
- ↑ The occasional claim that the ship was confiscated from March 1918 to 1919 by the Emergency Fleet Corporation of the United States Shipping Board in New York on the basis of Angarien law , is based on a confusion with the 1902-built Prins der Nederlanden (2287 BRT) of the Koninklijke West-Indische Maildienst ( The Shipslist: Koninklijke West-Indische Maildienst ).
- ↑ In 1926 the Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (14,642 GRT), 1928 the Christiaan Huygens (16,286 GRT) and in 1930 the Johan van Oldenbarneveld (19,428 GRT) and the Marnix van Sint Aldegonde (19,355 GRT).
- ↑ The often used spelling Aquileja is incorrect.
- ↑ For this reason, Italy bought several old passenger ships abroad in the first half of 1935, including the Cesarea , the California and the Gradisca .
- ↑ If she had been registered as a hospital ship, she would not have been allowed to transport troops or supplies.
- ^ The Regia Marina used a total of eight passenger ships that were first chartered and then requisitioned from February to December 1935; in addition to Aquileia , these were the Cesarea , the California , the Gradisca , the Helouan , the Tevere , the Urania and the Vienna (Enrico Cernuschi, Maurizio Brescia, Erminio Bagnasco: Le navi ospedale italiane 1935–1945 , Albertelli Edizioni, Parma, 2010) .
- ↑ Like the other Italian hospital ships in World War II, she was a so-called "Naviglio Ausiliario Autonomo", autonomous aid ship (Enrico Cernuschi, Maurizio Brescia, Erminio Bagnasco: Le navi ospedale italiane 1935-1945 , Albertelli Edizioni, Parma, 2010).
- ↑ On October 13, 1940, the Aquileia searched in vain for survivors of the sea battle on Capo Passero (October 11/12), in which Regia Marina had lost a destroyer and two torpedo boats , southeast of Capo Passero . On April 1, 1942, she recovered four British Air Force soldiers who had been floating in the water with a flashlight. And on June 15, 1942, she was looking for, again unsuccessfully, together with the hospital ship Città di Trapani , for survivors of the heavy cruiser Trento , who previously in the day in the battle for one of Alexandria to Malta running convoy had been sunk.
- ↑ 5954 GRT; Sank about 30 nautical miles northwest of Cape Bon on January 22, 1943 after being hit by a bomb . Württemberg State Library Stuttgart: 1943 - January .
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/kriegsrecht/lazarett.htm
- ↑ The Italian destroyer Leone Pancaldo , sailing with the Hermes , was sunk in the same air raid, with the loss of 156 of its 280 men.
- ^ Ex Saarbrücken of the NDL .